like water off a duck's back

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like water off a duck's back

1. (simile, colloquial, idiomatic) Without immediate or lasting effects.
   • 1919, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 18, in Rainbow Valley:

     "She combs me down with her tongue sometimes though, but that just slips off me like water off a duck's back."

   • 2009 January 2, Jan Espeut, “The honeymoon is over”, in Jamaica Gleaner, retrieved 20 Jan. 2009:

     Scandal after scandal would break, but it would be like water off a duck's back; no heads rolled, and no one seemed particularly perturbed.

• Used especially in relation to unheeded criticism.

• water off a duck's back
• like a duck takes to water
• Teflon (adjective)

• “Like water off a duck's back”, in BBC Learning English‎, BBC, 2014 October 28