This mini episode teaches you the useful expression “in broad daylight.”
Episode 155 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the expression “in broad daylight.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Here is the expression I want to teach you today: in broad daylight. In broad daylight. That's in: i-n. Broad: b-r-o-a-d. Daylight: d-a-y-l-i-g-h-t. In broad daylight.
What does in broad daylight mean? In broad daylight means “happening during the daytime, happening where everybody can see.”
And we usually use in broad daylight when we describe people doing things that should stay secret, or people doing things that should stay hidden. So we usually use this term when people are doing something wrong, when people are doing something that they would not want other people to see.
Let me give you an example of a sentence that uses in broad daylight, and then I think you will understand perfectly.
“I couldn't believe it when I saw someone steal a car in broad daylight.” I couldn’t believe it when I saw someone steal a car in broad daylight.
In other words, I couldn't believe it when I saw someone—in the middle of the day, where anybody could see—steal a car. You would normally expect someone to steal a car, or do some other bad thing like that, when it's dark, when they can be hidden, when they can do what they're doing secretly, where people cannot easily see them doing it. And we use in broad daylight for things that happen when we would not expect them to happen, when everybody can easily see.
That is in broad daylight, a useful and interesting expression that you might have an opportunity to use soon.