Meaning of Idiom ‘More (something) Than You Can Shake a Stick At’
Where there is more of something than you can shake a stick at, there is a very large quantity; more than one can count or would care to count. 1Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.,2Ayto, John. [http://amzn.to/2vdGvI7 Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms]. Oxford: Oxford U, 2010.,3Heacock, Paul. Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms]. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010.
Examples Of Use
“There are more wedding chapels in Vegas than you can shake a stick at.”
“There are more churches in this little town than you can shake a stick at.”
“The place is infested—more rats than you could shake a stick at, not to mention the roaches.”
A. “Do we have any more printer paper?” B. “We’ve got more paper than you could shake a stick at. What we don’t have is printer ink.”
Origin
This U.S. idiom would appear to allude to brandishing a stick as a weapon but the precise origin is unknown. It has been used since around 1800. 4Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.
