Turkish is extraordinarily rich in deyimler — fixed, conventionalized idioms — and a huge share of them are built on body parts. The body becomes a metaphor factory: the eye does the looking and the trusting, the hand does the reaching and the meddling, the head does the defying, and can (the soul/life-force) does much of the feeling. These phrases are non-compositional: you cannot work out the meaning from the words, and translating them literally produces nonsense or comedy. This page groups the highest-frequency body idioms so you can learn them in families.
A word on why this matters: in Turkish, a great deal of cognition and emotion is expressed through body idioms rather than through abstract verbs. Where English has "to glance," Turkish prefers "to throw an eye" (göz atmak). Where English has "to be dying to," Turkish says "to throw one's can" (can atmak). Learning the body idioms is not decoration — it's how everyday meaning actually gets made.
göz (eye) — looking, trusting, taking notice
The eye is the most productive body part of all. Its idioms cluster around perception and, by extension, judgment.
Göz atmak — "to glance, to take a quick look" (literally "to throw an eye"). The thing looked at takes the dative.
Sözleşmeye bir göz atar mısın, bir sorun var mı diye?
Could you take a quick look at the contract, to see if there's a problem?
Gazeteye şöyle bir göz attım ama detaylı okumadım.
I glanced at the newspaper like that, but I didn't read it in detail.
Gözü tutmak — "to take a liking to, to trust on first impression" (literally "one's eye holds it"). Used when something or someone strikes you as right.
Bu evi çok beğendim, içeri girer girmez gözüm tuttu.
I really liked this house; my eye took to it the moment I stepped in.
Adamı gözüm tutmadı, ona güvenmiyorum.
I didn't take to the man, I don't trust him.
Göze çarpmak — "to catch the eye, to be noticeable" (literally "to strike the eye"). Useful for describing what stands out.
Raporda hemen göze çarpan birkaç hata var.
There are a few errors in the report that immediately catch the eye.
el (hand) — reaching in, taking up, getting rid of
The hand idioms are about agency: starting something, meddling, or disposing of something.
El atmak — "to take up, to set about, to step in" (literally "to throw a hand"). It can mean tackling a task or intervening in a matter; the thing taken up takes the dative.
Belediye sonunda bu soruna el attı.
The municipality has finally stepped in to deal with this problem.
Yeni bir işe el atmadan önce iyice düşün.
Think it over carefully before you take up a new job.
Elden çıkarmak — "to dispose of, to sell off" (literally "to put out of the hand"). Used for getting rid of property you no longer want.
Eski arabayı ucuza elden çıkardık.
We sold off the old car cheaply.
kafa / baş (head) — defiance and reasoning
Turkish has two "head" words: baş (the more formal, anatomical and metaphorical head) and kafa (the everyday, often colloquial head). Their idioms lean toward thinking, stubbornness, and confrontation. Note the ş in baş — keep it, and the dative shift in possessed forms (başa çıkmak "to cope with," literally "to come out onto the head").
Kafa tutmak — "to defy, to stand up to, to talk back" (literally "to hold up a head"). The person defied takes the dative.
Küçücük çocuk öğretmenine kafa tuttu.
The tiny kid defied his teacher.
Patronuna kafa tutarsan işten atılırsın.
If you stand up to your boss, you'll get fired.
Baş etmek / başa çıkmak — "to cope with, to manage, to deal with." The thing coped with takes the comitative ile / dative respectively.
Bu kadar işle tek başıma baş edemiyorum.
I can't cope with this much work on my own.
can (soul / life-force) — desire and distress
Can has no clean English equivalent — it's the soul, the life, the inner self — and it powers some of the most emotional idioms. (Several appear on the feelings page too, because they straddle "body idiom" and "emotion expression.")
Can atmak — "to be dying to, to long for desperately" (literally "to throw one's soul"). What you long for takes the dative or appears as an infinitive.
O konsere gitmek için can atıyorum.
I'm dying to go to that concert.
Çocuk yeni bisiklete can atıyor.
The kid is desperate for the new bike.
Canı sıkılmak — "to get bored, to feel down" (literally "one's soul gets squeezed"). The possessor changes with person: canım sıkıldı "I got bored," canı sıkıldı "he/she got bored."
Yağmurda evde kaldık, çocukların canı sıkıldı.
We stayed home in the rain, the kids got bored.
Can sıkıcı — the adjective spun off the same root: "boring, annoying, tiresome."
Çok can sıkıcı bir toplantıydı.
It was a very tiresome meeting.
kulak (ear) — listening and ignoring
Kulak vermek — "to lend an ear, to listen attentively, to heed" (literally "to give an ear"). The thing heeded takes the dative.
Lütfen söylediklerime biraz kulak ver.
Please listen a little to what I'm saying.
Kulak ardı etmek — "to ignore, to turn a deaf ear to" (literally "to put behind the ear"). The neat antonym of kulak vermek.
Uyarılarımı kulak ardı etti, sonra pişman oldu.
He ignored my warnings, then regretted it.
ağız (mouth) — speech and persuasion
Keep the ğ in ağız; it softens but stays in the spelling, and the vowel drops in possessed forms (ağzı "his mouth").
Ağız yapmak — "to give empty talk, to sweet-talk insincerely" (informal). Used when someone's words don't match their intentions.
Bana ağız yapma, ne yapacağını biliyorum.
Don't sweet-talk me, I know what you're going to do.
Ağzı açık kalmak — "to be left dumbfounded, to be amazed" (literally "one's mouth stays open").
Manzarayı görünce ağzım açık kaldı.
When I saw the view, I was left dumbfounded.
Common mistakes
The number-one error is translating the idiom literally and producing something no Turk would say:
❌ Sözleşmeye hızlı baktım.
Understandable but un-idiomatic for a casual glance; the fixed phrase is 'göz atmak'.
✅ Sözleşmeye hızlıca bir göz attım.
I took a quick glance at the contract.
Putting the object in the wrong case because the idiom's dative isn't obvious:
❌ Patronunu kafa tuttu.
Incorrect — 'kafa tutmak' takes the dative, so it must be 'patronuna', not the accusative 'patronunu'.
✅ Patronuna kafa tuttu.
He stood up to his boss.
Confusing gözü tutmak (take a liking to) with the unrelated göz atmak (glance):
❌ Bu adama göz attım, ona güveniyorum.
Wrong idiom — 'göz atmak' is just glancing; trusting on first impression is 'gözü tutmak'.
✅ Bu adamı gözüm tuttu, ona güveniyorum.
I took a liking to this man, I trust him.
Using canı sıkılmak to mean physical pain instead of boredom/distress:
❌ Düştüm ve canım sıkıldı.
Wrong sense — 'canı sıkılmak' is boredom/being down; for physical pain say 'canım yandı'.
✅ Düştüm ve canım yandı.
I fell and it hurt.
Dropping the ğ when writing ağız idioms:
❌ Manzarayı görünce agzım açık kaldı.
Misspelled — 'ağzım' keeps the soft g (ğ).
✅ Manzarayı görünce ağzım açık kaldı.
When I saw the view, I was left dumbfounded.
Key takeaways
- Turkish deyimler built on body parts are non-compositional — learn the meaning whole, never word by word.
- göz: göz atmak (glance), gözü tutmak (take a liking to), göze çarpmak (catch the eye).
- el: el atmak (take up / step in), elden çıkarmak (dispose of).
- kafa/baş: kafa tutmak (defy), baş etmek / başa çıkmak (cope with).
- can: can atmak (be dying to), canı sıkılmak (get bored / feel down).
- kulak: kulak vermek (heed), kulak ardı etmek (ignore). ağız: ağız yapmak (sweet-talk), ağzı açık kalmak (be dumbfounded).
- The light verbs atmak, tutmak, vermek recur; the object is usually in the dative, and that case is part of the idiom.
Now practice Turkish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Feelings and OpinionsB1 — Expressing what you think and how you feel in Turkish — opinion frames, adjective-plus-copula moods, and the possessive emotion idioms that catch every learner.
- Common Verbal Idioms and Light-Verb PhrasesB2 — Turkish noun + light-verb collocations — why you 'give a decision' and 'set out to the road', and which light verb each common noun habitually takes.
- Atasözleri: Proverbs Analyzed (B1)B1 —
- Verb-Noun Collocations by ThemeB2 — Fixed verb-noun pairings clustered by topic — food, money, communication, decisions — where the conventional verb is set per noun and rarely matches English.