Rain idioms can help us sound more natural and concise when speaking or writing in English. Learning them can also boost listening comprehension.
Did you know that rain actually has a scent? Amazing! It should come as no surprise that a big topic like the rain has spawned many English sayings. Let’s look at 26 of them today.
Which sounds more natural to you: I would like to delay the picnic, or, can we take a rain check on the picnic? That’s right, using the idiom rain check can help us to sound more natural when speaking English.
Related: 50 Rain Sentences To Help Increase Your Writing And Speaking Skill
Rain idioms
The first group of rain idioms today are some of the more common English idioms, that refer to rain.
| Rain Idiom | Meaning |
| When it rains it pours | This means that when something bad happens, it’s perhaps inevitable that other bad things will happen too. Bad things happen together. |
| Right as rain | This means we feel fine. It is often said after we have recovered from an illness. |
| Take a rain check | This means to postpone, or delay something. For instance, we can take a rain check on dinner, and meet next week instead. |
| Saving for a rainy day | You are saving something, usually money, for a future when you may need it more than now. |
| Come rain or shine | We do something enthusiastically no matter how we’re feeling. |
| Be rained off | Something was canceled due to the bad weather. |
| Rain buckets | This means very heavy rain, a metaphor. |
| Rain down on | Things fall down in a very heavy and violent manner. For instance, hailstones rained down on the car and cracked the windshield! |
| Spits and spots of rain | It means inconsistent and light rain. Sometimes it happens before heavy rain starts. |
| It’s absolutely bucketing down | Like rain buckets, it means it’s really raining heavily. |
| Soaked to the skin | I got soaked in the rain. Really wet. |
| No rain no rainbow | Good things can’t happen unless something negative also happens. |
Example Sentences using rain idioms
- I not only got soaked through walking home in the rain, but later I caught a bad cold. It just goes to show, when it rains it pours!
- I’ve recovered from my cold now, and I feel as right as rain.
- Can we take a rain check dinner? I’m not feeling too well this evening.
- Ava doesn’t spend much of her earnings. She believes in saving for a rainy day.
- Liam works in the garden come rain or shine. He is so enthusiastic about it.
- The football game was rained off. They are going to reschedule it for next weekend.
- It is absolutely raining buckets right now! I hope it stops soon!
- Hail rained down on the driveway this afternoon. It was quite a sight!
- We’ve had spits and spots of rain today, but nothing substantial.
- Look at that weather! It is absolutely bucketing down! We can’t go out today.
- If you go out now, you will get soaked to the skin!
- Try to have enthusiasm about going to the gym. There is no rainbow without rain!
Related: 30 Weather Idioms
Cloud idioms
Closely related to idioms about rain, these cloud idioms are used in a variety of situations, from describing how you are feeling, to talking about the weather. They are popular idioms in the English language if you ask me – “being on cloud nine” is one of the most popular rain/cloud idioms out there!
| Cloud Idiom | Meaning |
| Every cloud has a silver lining | When bad things happen there is always something positive to be found in it. |
| Be on cloud nine | To be feeling extremely happy. |
| Head in the clouds | To be in your own world, daydreaming. |
| To cloud up/to cloud over | To become cloudy |
- Although the company didn’t renew my contract, they did leave me with a nice little bonus. It just goes to show that every cloud has a silver lining.
- Oliver is on cloud nine this week because he passed his university entrance exam.
- Liam has his head in the clouds. He better pay attention otherwise the teacher might get annoyed with him.
- It looks like the weather is going to cloud up soon. Let’s go home.
Sayings about rain
Here are some more sayings about rain:
| Pouring rain | Heavy rain |
| Under the weather | Feeling ill |
| Cloud over | To become cloudy |
| It’s raining cats and dogs | Very heavy rain-not raining real cats and dogs! |
| Bucket down | Very heavy rain, as if someone were pouring buckets of water. |
- It is pouring rain outside!
- I am feeling under the weather today.
- I hope it doesn’t cloud over because I want to go to the park!
- Look outside! It’s raining cats and dogs!
- I think it’s going to bucket down later.
Which rain idiom means heavy rainfall?
To be honest, there are more than a few popular idioms to talk about heavy rainfall. A good one is rain buckets. It is a metaphor, and not really describing actual buckets of water falling down out of the sky!
It is raining buckets outside. The garden might flood!
Idioms like rain on my parade
The popular addition to our rain idioms, rain on my parade, means to spoil someone’s joy. There are several other common English idioms with fairly similar meanings, below:
| Similar to rain on my parade | Example sentence |
| Put a damper on things | The bad weather really put a damper on the beach party! |
| Be a killjoy | Why is he such a killjoy all the time? |
| Be a mood killer | Emma’s negative comments were a real mood killer. |
| Spoil the party | His criticisms really spoiled the party. |
| A buzzkill | Don’t be such a buzzkill! |
A rainy day paragraph: rain Idioms exercise
How many rain idioms can you find in this rainy day paragraph? Give it a try! The answer is at the bottom.
I am coming to the opinion that when it rains it pours. I never used to really believe this. This changed this past month, however. I went walking in the countryside with my wife, and the weather was looking good, but then it started to cloud over. First, there were just some spits and spots of rain, and I thought it was no problem. But after that, it started raining cats and dogs! We got absolutely soaked to the skin.
We hastily retreated to the car and drove home. The next day we both started feeling under the weather, and eventually, we developed bad colds! We were coughing for days. Thankfully, we are as right as rain now. After a few days, the rain started again. Our roof sprung a leak, and part of our living room got wet. It caused quite a lot of damage to the wallpaper and carpets. This month hasn’t been fun!
Did you find all 7 of the idioms about rain?
Rain Idioms list
Here are all 26 of today’s rain idioms in one list. Please review them often so that you can quickly recall them when having conversations in English.
- When it rains it pours
- Right as rain
- Take a rain check
- Saving for a rainy day
- Rain or shine
- Be rained off
- Rain buckets
- Rain down on
- Spits and spots of rain
- It’s absolutely bucketing down
- Soaked to the skin
- No rain no rainbow
- Every cloud has a silver lining
- On cloud nine
- Head in the clouds
- To cloud up/to cloud over
- Pouring rain
- Under the weather
- It’s raining cats and dogs
- Bucket down
- Put a damper on things
- Rain on my Parade
- Be a killjoy
- Be a mood killer
- Spoil the party
- A buzzkill
26 Rain Idioms to not only talk about the weather
Today we have looked at 26 rain idioms – but one thing you may have noticed as you were reading through them is that some of them don’t actually concern the weather! For example, taking a rain check means postponing something. No real connection to the rain in its practical use. Also, we have gone over a rainy day paragraph, as a kind of idiom-finding exercise. I hope you have enjoyed these wet idioms!