rock the boat
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
To do or say something that will upset people or cause problems.
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Làm điều gì đó gây khó chịu cho người khác hoặc gây ra vấn đề
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
and so oh you really rocked the boat
Then there is the inertia factor of the private shareholders who don't want to rock the boat at all.’
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Imported from Wikipedia “English-language idioms” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29), pending review.
Common questions
What does “rock the boat” mean?
To do or say something that will upset people or cause problems.
Is “rock the boat” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.