Hi! It's a fairly common phrase where I live in the U.S. that's used to tell someone they have a lot of potential: "The world is your oyster," a grandparent might say to a grandchild. It means what it does because oysters have pearls, so the phrase comes with the connotation that one will be rewarded if they work hard (as you have to work to open the oyster to get the pearl). It's a little outdated and clichéd, but it's still used among some people and in greeting cards. Hope that helped! Ide

It's fairly common, and it is quotation from Shakespeare. Shakespeare added hundreds of words and phrases to English. People use many of them without knowing that they are from Shakespeare. I did know that this was from Shakespeare, but I needed to look up the sources. It is from the play, "The Merry Wives of Windsor." In it, a character says: "Why, then the world's mine oyster. Which I with sword will open." "Mine" is an outdated word that means the same thing as "my." In O. Henry's famous story, "Springtime Á La Carte," O. Henry wrote about a young woman in the early 1900s who was managing to earn a living by typing up menus for a restaurant. He is writing humorously. This style of humor might be called "droll" or "whimsical." He wrote this: "The gentleman who announced that the world was an oyster which he with his sword would open made a larger hit than he deserved. It is not difficult to open an oyster with a sword. But did you ever notice any one try to open the terrestrial bivalve with a typewriter? Like to wait for a dozen raw opened that way? Sarah had managed to pry apart the shells with her unhandy weapon far enough to nibble a wee bit at the cold and clammy world within."

@william @Giorhia Thank you

It means that the world gives you opportunities to get!

Hi Sultan. This is an idiomatic expression which means "we can do anything that we set our minds to." Maybe you have heard the expression "the world is in our hands", which means that we have the power to shape the future. Similarly, an oyster fits in your hand, and when you crack it open, you find something good inside (in this case, food). The expression "the world is in our hands" also often comes with the suggestion of responsibility. By saying "the world is in our hands", it suggests we must also look after the world. In contrast, "the world is our oyster" is much more opportunistic. You can think of it as a "call to adventure" which suggests that opportunities are waiting for us, if only we can open them up. Is this a common expression? I am American, and I wouldn't say very common, but it does come up every once in a while.