Your Bark is Worse Than Your Bite
Perro que ladra, no muerde
Google images, «Your bark is worse than your bite»
Meaning:
We tell a person that their bark is worse than their bite to mean than their threats are more frightening in sound than what they really are when they are put into practice.
Google images, «Your bark is worse than your bite.»
Origin:
This expression was first used in the mid-1600’s. There are dogs that bark as if they were going to take your soul out of your body with a bite. Actually, dogs which bark the highest usually never attack you. That’s why, when a person announces a threat or a future punishment but in the end, they don´t do anything about it is when we say that their bite is worse than their bite.
Google images, «Your bark is worse than your bite.»
Example:
• My boss has been telling all of his workers for ages that if we keep arriving late to work, he would fire all of us but he has never done anything at all. Now, we don’t pay attention to his reprimands because we know that his bark is worse than his bite.
dcentreenglish 