knock someone's socks off
idiom

- if something knocks your socks off, you find it extremely exciting or good

(Cambridge Dictionary)

---

ORIGIN

Although the origin of this expression, which is also expressed as "blow your socks off," is unknown, it nonetheless paints a vivid picture. Imagine something that is so positively exciting that it actually has enough force to knock your socks off. Who wouldn't want to have this experience?

One thing we do know however, is the origin of the word "sock," which derives from the Latin "soccus" (slipper, light low-heeled shoe) by way of the Old English "socc" (slipper, light shoe). The Latin is likely a variant of the Greek "sykchos," a type of shoe.

Football fans might now be speculating that soccer, the U.S. English word for football, stems from the same source. We hate to disappoint, but the origin has nothing to do with slippers, light shoes or socks.

In the mid-19th century, British schoolboys applied nicknames to just about everything, a habit that continues to this day. The sport of rugby was called "rugger" for instance.

In 1863, after a group of football teams in England decided to get together and create a standard set of rules for their matches, they formed the rules for Association Football, with the word association distinguishing it from the many other types of football sports in existence in England, like rugby.

The term Association Football was eventually shortened to "Assoccer", which quickly just became "soccer." As the Americans created their own form of football, which is more like rugby, they adopted the term soccer for what the rest of the world refers to as football.

---
SYNONYMS

it was... awesome, capital, classic, cool, corking, crackerjack, cracking, dynamite, fab, fabulous, famous, fantabulous, fantastic, number one, numero uno, out-of-sight, par excellence, sensational, stellar, terrific, tip-top, top, top-notch, top-of-the-line, top-shelf, topflight, topping [chiefly British]

---
Practice OWAD in a conversation today
say something like:

"His presentation really KNOCKED OUR SOCKS OFF!"