move a muscle

1. Bestir oneself even slightly. This idiom is usually put negatively, either with implied criticism, as in She won't move a muscle to help get dinner, or not, as in When I saw the deer, I stayed quite still, not daring to move a muscle. It was first recorded in 1889.

Example Sentences

“Thirty seconds passed by. I knew if I swallowed water I’d be done for. I was able to keep my head up, floating out of the water, but I was stuck in the rubble and couldn’t move a muscle.”

Read more on Literature

Like a carnival ride from hell, the capsule whipped the pilots around and around until they felt they were being crushed, until their field of vision shrank to a narrow tunnel, until they couldn’t move a muscle under the strain, couldn’t breathe or even blink.

Read more on Literature

Clearly, they coped extremely well, and newly confirmed number one Hampton barely had to move a muscle.

Read more on BBC

I’ve been here for a while and I haven’t seen it move a muscle.

Read more on Salon

Brain-computer interface devices work by recording brain activities associated with a function, such as speech or movement, and use them to control an external device without having to move a muscle.

Read more on Science Daily