Learn English – Meaning of ‘Cornered Tiger’

meaning

I have listen a lot of time that Pakistan are cornered tigers in cricket commentary. What does that really mean ?

Best Answer

The original phrase (in English) is "cornered rat", which originated in the 1800s and became widespread in the early 1900s https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cornered+rat&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccornered%20rat%3B%2Cc0enter image description here with the meaning that an animal (or a person) can be much more dangerous when cornered.

Obviously, though, telling your team to fight "like cornered rats" would not have quite the same ring. Tigers sound ever so much more noble and dangerous.