white as a sheet

Idioms  

1. Very pale in the face, as in She was white as a sheet after that near encounter. This simile, dating from about 1600, survives despite the fact that bedsheets now come in all colors.

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Example Sentences

When Cohen countered that perhaps Weisselberg should lay out the money himself, “Weisselberg went white as a sheet — like he’d seen a ghost,” he writes.

From Washington Post • Sep. 5, 2020

"I remember turning to see Paul walk up the pitch from his left-back position and thinking he looked white as a sheet," captain Horne told BBC Radio Wales.

From BBC • Nov. 17, 2013

One guest at the party recalls President Obama’s then-national security adviser, Tom Donilon, who owns a home nearby, showing up, spotting Fuld and Mozilo, turning white as a sheet, and slipping back out the door.

From BusinessWeek • Sep. 12, 2013

Caroline, when she was born, was beet red, with a great deal of her sister’s blood, and Rachel was white as a sheet, and had a transfusion at birth.

From New York Times • Aug. 30, 2013

She was as white as a sheet, and her teeth were chattering.

From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende