What does this phrase mean? “You could have heard a pin drop.” [closed]
What does this phrase mean?
You could have heard a pin drop.
Solution 1:
This is a figure of speech (rhetoric) and it consists in an exageration. Nobody can hear a pin drop and even more so in a normal environment, where there are people talking, the noise of the street in the background, etc. Therefore, before having the least opportunity for hearing a pin drop, perfect silence is needed. This hyperbole (as this sort of rhetorical figure is also called) emphasize then how complete was the silence in the place where a pin could have been heard if it had dropped.