Where does the phrase sick as a parrot come from?

Answer 1

The phrase I think derives from a disease called psittacosis, something that parrots get but also people working in dusty environments get; it is a lung disease and causes breathlessness, coughing and vomitting, and can be fatal.

Answer 2

It is seemingly a football term in the UK. But the first source has more.


Cassell's Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins By Nigel Rees 2004

Has several pages of material on this. The speaker was either 'over the moon* or sick as a parrot. ... Sick as a parrot'
was already in use at the time of the 1978 Football League Cup Final

also:
SICK AS A PARROT - ".extremely chagrined. 1979 - 'The Maggatollah admitted frankly that he was 'sick as a parrot' at the way events had been unfolding.'." "The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang" by John Ayto and John Simpson (Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1996).

Answer 3

SICK AS A PARROT - ".extremely chagrined.

The phrase 'as sick as a parrot' has its origins in Spurs' 1909 South American tour," on the boat home, two players won a fancy-dress competition, one of whom used the ship's parrot as a prop. As a result the bird was presented to the club.
Ten years later, however, it died on the day Arsenal replaced Spurs in the first division - hence the origin of the phrase 'as sick as a parrot'.

Answer 4

When parrots talk they can sometimes sound like elderly relatives and will often mimic the noises heard from their owners.

Given that the UK has been multicultural for over 200 years, if the owners happen to have prejudices, the parrot may repeat them and that is where the phrase originates.

NB Some elderly members of the British Empire are aware of this and try to blame the parrots vocab for their own attitudes.

Answer 5

How it got into English, I don't know, but Mme. Bovary had a maid who had a parrot which got sick and died. Is Flaubert so widely read for this to be the source?

The saying is certainly older than the famous Monty Python Parrot joke.

Answer 6

I have an idea it stemmed from a very old nautical term.
in days of high seas piracy, when the ships crews became ill with dysantry, scurvy and suchlike, and indeed seasickness.
The parrot has long been associated with pirates (long john silver, treasure island). A parrot confined to spending life on rough seas , invariably became quite sick. lack of proper food, nourishment etc !

Answer 7

I think it may have originated from Private Eye in the 70s. Perhaps the parrot came from Monty Python. It was only afterwards that footballers started using this cliché not realizing they were lampooning themselves.

Answer 8

parrots feed their young by regurgitating partly digested seed and birds in breeding condition still do this even when kept on their own in captivity and it looks as if they are being sick thus
"sick as a parrot"

Answer 9

Dunno, I've got two parrots and they've never been sick but they mimic my husband throwing up. Very tasteful when you've got company. They also do a good cough and they groan when I try to get up off the floor (I must stop drinking)

Answer 10

When a parrot was ill I think.