What Does It Mean? If you steal someone's thunder, you use someone's idea and take all the credit for it. You can also steal someone's thunder by upstaging them. Where Does It Come From? This one comes from the theatre. Back in the 1700s, technicians of old had a number of simple but successful means of creating effects on stage. The sound of thunder had various methods of generation, including by shaking thin sheets of metal and rolling metal balls down troughs. An unsuccessful playwright of the time by the name of John Dennis had a bright idea of a new way to create this effect: by rolling metal balls not in a trough, but a bowl. He attempted this during the premiere performance of his play, Appius and Virginia, which, by all accounts, totally bombed - but people quickly caught on to his skills in the department of special effects. A short time later, Mr Dennis attended a performance of Macbeth, where he noticed that his new thunder method was being ripped off by the production team. Utterly outraged, he is said to have jumped up from his seat and interrupted the show by shouting, 'the villains will not play my play, but they steal my thunder!' You can't help but feel slightly sorry for the guy...
Stephanie is a writer and free spirit who likes to pretend she's a Londoner, though strictly speaking she's from Watford. She likes books, music, elephants, and hairspray.
