take the wind out of someone's sails

Referring to the idea of a ship that intercepts the wind of another, causing it to slow or stop.

• ""I tell you Van Bahr Lamb is a fool." […] But Polly […] completely took the wind out of her sails, by coolly remarking,— "I like fools.""
• "Could he have some elderly idea of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did. Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails."
• "[T]he Republicans […] have been repeatedly battered in the polls since German unification became a mainstream German concern and took the wind out of their sails."
• ""It took the wind out of our sails," he says. "I had no Plan B. I was a wreck.""
• "A bunch of myths, a bunch of tales / To take the wind out of our sails / They even say that we must die / I don't believe it, that's a lie"

• deflate
• flummox
• stultify
• stymie
• thwart

• cut the ground from under someone's feet
• pull the rug out from under
• take the piss