cat on a hot tin roof像热锅上的蚂蚁；局促不安；如坐针毡

【使用地区】：美国

【释义】：

Best known today as the title of Tennessee Williams’s famous play，the expression has been in wide use since the turn of the twentieth century．Apparently it came to the South and then the rest of the country via a similar British phrase，like a cat on hot bricks，which has been traced back to about 1880 and which also means“someone ill at ease，uncomfortable，not at home in a place or situation．”

自从19世纪末20世纪初以来，该用语一直被广泛使用。作为Tennessee Williams(1914—1983，美国剧作家)的著名戏剧的剧名(《热铁皮屋顶上的猫》)，此用语今天更为人们所熟知。显然，它是通过相似的英国短语like a cat on hot bricks而传到美国南部，然后再流传到其他地区的。该英国用语可追溯到大约1880年，其意思也是指“不自在的，不安的，拘束的”。