Wet one's beak?

Question

Hi,What does "to wet one's beak in something" mean? Does it sound idiomatic? (my best guess is that  it means "To dip one's toes in the water" or "to stick one's nose in")I heard it in this sentence:The kid likes to wet his beak in everything.Thanks!

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

I've never heard this expression. I'd have trouble understanding it.

Clive

CalifJim · Answer

MrPernicketyThe kid likes to wet his beak in everything.

The kid is probably more like a young adult. To let someone wet his beak is to let them take some of the profit gained through extortion. At least that's my take on it. The saying comes from Sicilian, and I believe the expression is used in The Godfather. By extension, I assume "to wet his beak in everything" means to profit by any and every means possible (even illegally).

Not knowing more of the context, I may be way offhere.

That said, the expression is very, very rarely used, and only one person in (I'm guessing) many hundred thousand would have any idea what it meant. For a learner of English it is so far off the beaten path that there's no point at all in learning it.

CJ

MrPernickety · Answer

CalifJim
MrPernicketyThe kid likes to wet his beak in everything.
The kid is probably more like a young adult. To let someone wet his beak is to let them take some of the profit gained through extortion.

You have clairvouant abilities!

. The fact of the matter is that it was uttered by a mafia boss as regards a kid who was just enrolled in the mafia and who was doing quite good.

Thanks !

CalifJim · Answer

MrPernicketyThe fact of the matter is that it was uttered by a mafia boss

Ah! OK. Then the meaning I gave is the one you want.

(I wasn't that sure because kid, as you probably know, can refer to someone as young as 2 or 3 years old. The meaning here, though, is someone who is a junior member of an organization.)

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

"wet one's beak" means get a share o a piece of a profit thru a business transaction. In lay man's term having a share on something. Hope it helps. <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Anonymous · Answer

I just re-watched the Godfather movies and also became curious about this expression. When the characters were speaking in Italian, the English subtitles spelled the word as WET, whereas I kept thinking it should be WHET, as in "to whet one's appetite." WHET means to sharpen or stimulate. "Whetting," or "sharpening" one's beak might make sense in another context, but not in the context of the movie scenes in question. I believe the expression means just what you would think it means: to dip in, to have a taste of, to partake of the booty.

I have no idea if this is a true Sicillian expression, or if it was just something invented by Mario Puzo or Francis Coppola.

AZ

CSnyder · Answer

This is an extremely old post, but I'm very confident that the expression is wet rather than whet.

Anonymous · Answer

I was watching a sparrow sharpen (or clean?) his beak on a tree branch this morning and thought, He's whetting his beak.  I wonder which is more to the point.

Anonymous · Answer

Most birds actually seem to sharpen their beaks after drinking at a birdbath. It's always been my thought too: it began as whet and became wet thanks to Mario Puzo. They complication is that birds whet their beaks after getting them wet . . .

Wet one's beak?

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