W.C. Hazlitt, comp. English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases. 1907.
Credulity thinks to Drumming is not
Credulity thinks others short-sighted.
Crime may be secret, yet not secure.
Cringing is a gainful accomplishment.
Critics are like brushers of other men’s clothes.
Crooked carlin, quo’ the cripple to his wife.
Crooked without and crabbed within.
The Passionate Morrice, 1593, repr. 86.
Cross and pile.
The old name of Heads and Tails from pile, the technical term for the design on the obverse of a coin and the cross which used to occur on the reverse. In an arrangement between the French King and the Count of Saint-Pol in 1337 the latter engaged that his Coinage should differ from the regal types cross and pile.
Crosses are ladders to heaven.
Crows are never the whiter for washing themselves.
Crumb not your bread before you taste your porridge.
Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas (Dyce’s B. and F. vii. 384). But though the phrase is marked as a quotation, and is quoted in common with one or two other known proverbs, I scarcely know whether it ought to find a place here.
Cry you mercy, killed my cat.
This is spoken to them who do one a shrewd turn, and then make satisfaction with asking pardon or crying mercy.—R.
Cuckolds are Christians all the world over.
The story is well known of the old woman, who, hearing a young fellow call his dog a cuckold, said to him, Are you not ashamed to call a dog by a Christian’s name?—R.
Cuckolds themselves are the very last that know it.
Cucullus non facit monachum. Twelfth Night.
“It is an old and not unknown Proverbe, Cucullus non facit monachum. The Hood maketh not the Clarke.”—Romoouall of certaine Imputations laid upon the Ministers of Deuone: and Cornwall, 1606, p. 28. The ancient Flemish poet, Jacop van Maerlant (1235–1300) is said to have expressed the view, that the virtue of a priest does not lie in his tonsure. Delepierre, Sketch of Flemish Literature, 1860, p. 38.
Cui bono?
Cum grano salis.
Cunning craft is but the ape of wisdom.
Cunning is no burden.
It is part of Bias’s goods; it will not hinder a man’s flight when the enemies are at hand.—R.
Cupar and Jedburgh Justice.
Comp. First Hang and Draw.
Custom is a second nature.
Mudar costumbre a par de muerte. Span.—R.
Custom is the guide of the ignorant.
Custom makes all things easy.
Custom without reason is but an ancient error.
Cut off a dog’s tail, and he will be a dog still.
The mediæval Latin and old French have this proverb differently:
“Ablue, pecte canem, canis est, quia permanet idem;” “Lavez peignez chen, toute vois n’est chien qu’ chen.”
Cut off the head and tail, and throw the rest away.
Cut, or give me the bill.
Cut your coat after your cloth.
Cutting out well is better than sewing up well.
Dab! quoth Dawkins, when he hit his wife on the …
Comp. Strike, Dawkins, &c., infra.
Dab! said Daniel, when he … in a well. Berkshire.
Dainty maketh dearth.
Dally not with money or women.
Danger and delight grow on one stock.
Danger is next neighbour to security.
Dangers are overcome by dangers.
Darby’s bands.
Daughters and dead fish are no keeping wares.
Davy Jones’s locker.
The sea. “This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes, shipwrecks and other disasters, to which a seafaring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe.”—Peregrine Pickle, chap. 13.
Daw’s Cross.
Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, circa 1570, p. 28. “It may please your Worships and Masterships, these infidell premisses considered, and that they have so fully performed all their acts in absurditie, impudence and foolerie, to grant them their absolute graces, to commence at Dawes Crosse.”—Nash’s Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596, repr. 1869, p. 11.
Daws love one another’s prattle.
De bonis male partis vix gaudebit tertius hæres.
Gascoigne’s Posies, 1575. Harington in his View of the State of the Church (Nugæ Antiquæ, ii. 231, ed. 1804) puts it differently: “De male quæsitis vix gaudet tertius hæres;” he terms this “a perilous vearse.”
De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
“Mortuis non conviciandum, et de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Namque mortui non mordent, iniquum est ut mordeantur.”—R. This is almost as familiar as an English proverb. It is the same in effect as the “livor post fata quiescat” of the poet.
Dead as Chelsea.
To get Chelsea; to obtain the benefit of that hospital. “Dead as Chelsea, by G—d!” an exclamation uttered by a grenadier at Fontenoy, on having his leg carried away by a cannon-ball.—Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1788, quoted by Brady (Var. of Lit., 1826.)
Dead as mutton.
A common expression among the lower order of people to denote the certainty of decease, took its rise, most probably, from the circumstance of mutton being only so called after the death of the animal, before called a sheep, has taken place.—Brady’s Varieties of Literature, 1826, p. 5.
Dead men tell no tales.
But it appears from an Italian tradition reprinted in Hazlitt’s Venetian Republic, 1900, ii. 763, under the date 1406, that an older form was Dead men make no wars (Uomo morto, guerra finia).
Dead mice feel no cold.
Deaf men are quick-eyed.
Deaf men go away with the injury.
Dear-bought and far-fetched are dainties for ladies.
See Far-fetched, &c., infra.
Dear bought is the honey that is licked from the thorn, quoth Hendyng.
Rel. Antiq. i. 114. “Nis nan blisse sothes inan thing thet is utewith, thet ne beo to bitter aboht, thet et hunie ther in beoth liked of thornes.”—Old English Homilies, 13th century, ed. Morris, 1st S., part 2, p. 185.
Dear child, it behoveth to learn.
“Leuf child lore byhoveth, quoth Hendyng.”—P. of H. (Rel. Ant., i 109).
Dearths foreseen come not.
Death devours lambs as well as sheep.
Death keeps no calendar.
Death, when it comes, will have no denial.
Walker’s Parœm., 1672, p. 35.
Death’s day is doom’s day.
Death’s door.
A person is said to be brought to death’s door when he nearly loses his life. Lady Fanshawe, in her Memoirs, says, under 1652 or thereabout, “that the scurvy brought him [Sir Richard Fanshawe] almost to death’s door.”
Debt is an evil conscience.
Debt is the worst poverty.
Debtors are liars.
Deceit is in haste, but honesty can wait a fair leisure.
Deceiving of a deceiver is no knavery.
Decency and decorum are not pride.
Deck a hedgehog, and he will seem a lord.
“So said of a base Boure that will ranke himselfe out of his ranke.”—W. MS. Rawlinson, c. 86, fol. 31, quoted by Mr. Furnivall (Babees Book, &c., 1868).
Deeds are fruits, words are leaves.
Deeds are males, words females are.
Davies, Sc. of Folly (1611), p. 147. “I fatti sono maschi, le parole femine.” Ital.
Deepest waters stillest go.
Field’s Amends for Ladies, 1618. We now say, “Still waters run deep”—a weaker phrase.
Defaming or slandering others is the greatest of all sins.
Defend me and spend me (saith the Irish churl).
Delay (or tarrying) hath oft wrought scathe.
Anc. Eng. Rom. of Havelok the Dane, ed. Skeat, line 1352.
Deliberating is not delaying.
Deliver your words not by number but by weight.
Denials make little faults great.
Dependence is a poor trade.
Desire of glory is the last garment that even wise men put off.
“The last infirmity of noble minds.”
Desires are nourished by delays.
Despair hath ruined some, but presumption multitudes.
Desperate cuts must have desperate cures.
Destiny leads the willing, but drags the unwilling.
Destroy the lion while he is but a whelp.
Detraction is a weed that grows only on dunghills.
Deus ex machinâ.
Fully explained in N. and Q., 1st S., ix. 77.
Dexterity comes by experience.
Diamond cut diamond.
Dick a’ Tuesday.
A name for the ignis fatuus or Jack O’Lanthorn. See Hazlitt’s Faiths and Folklore, 1905, Will o’ the Wisp.
Dick’s as dapper as a cock-wren.
Did you ever before hear an ass play upon a lute?
Diet cures more than the lancet.
Different sores must have different salves.
Difficulties give way to diligence.
Difficulty makes desire.
Diffidence is the right eye of prudence.
Dinners cannot be long where dainties want.
Dirt is dirtiest upon the fairest spots.
Dirty Dublin.
A by-name due to the maladorous condition of the Anna Liffey, on which the the city stands.
Dirty hands make clean money.
The converse is equally true.
Dirty troughs will serve dirty sows.
Discreet women have neither eyes nor ears.
New Help to Discourse, 1721, p. 134. “La femme de bien n’a ny yeux ny oreilles.—Fr.
Discretion is the better part of valour.
Manuche’s Just General, 1652, dedic.
Diseases are a tax on ill pleasures.
Diseases of the eye are to be cured with the elbow.
Disgraces are like cherries: one draws another.
Dishing up spurs.
My American correspondent writes:—“I think it is in allusion to the story of certain Freebooters’ women-folk serving them their spurs in a pasty, as a hint that the larder was low, and they should ‘boot, saddle, and over the Border’ to replenish the supply.” On this point see my Cookery Books, 1886, p. 11.
Disputations leave truth in the middle, and party at both ends.
Diversity of humours / breedeth tumours.
Do all you can to be good, and you’ll be so.
Do and undo, the day is long enough.
Do as I say, and not as I do.
See N. and Q., 3rd S., xi. 32.
Do as little as you can to repent of.
Do as most men do, and men will speak well of thee.
Do as the friar saith, not as he doeth.
Do as the maids do, say no, and take it.
Do as you would be done by.
Letter of Lettice, Countess of Leicester (about 1600), to Sir Michael Stanhope.
Do good, and then do it again.
Do in the hole as thou wouldst do in the hall.
Do it well, that thou mayst not do it twice.
Do not all you can; spend not all you have; believe not all you hear; and tell not all you know.
Do not dwell in a city, where a horse does not neigh nor a dog bark.
Somewhat similarly, Cassander, in Lyly’s Euphues and his England, 1580, says in his last will to his son: “Liue in the Countrey, not in the Court: where neither Grasse will growe, nor Mosse cleaue to thy heeles.”
Do not dwell in a city whose governor is a physician.
Do not look upon the vessel, but upon that which it contains.
Do not make fish of one and flesh of another.
Do not make me kiss, and you will not make me sin.
Do not put out your foot farther than you can draw it back again.
This saying I had from the late Sir Robert Hamilton.
Do not speak of secret matters in a field that is full of little hills.
Do not spur a free horse.
Non opus admisso subdere calear equo. Ovid. Caballo que buela, no quiere espuela. Span.—R.
Do nothing hastily but catching of fleas.
Do the likeliest and hope the best.
Do well and have well.
Do ye after him that beareth the purse.
Doctor Dodypoll.
A proverbial name for a foolish minister or doctor. Nash’s Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596, repr. 1869, p. 13. A drama called The Wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll was printed in 1600. “Doctor Dodypoll is more honoured then a good divine.”—Clarke’s Paœem., 1639, p. 137. See a note in my Manual of Old English Plays, 1892, p. 254. This does not seem to be a surname. See Richardson in v. “Dodipole or dotipole,” “perhaps from dote and pole.” Out of four instances given of its use here is one: “But some will say our curate is naught, an ass-head, a dodipoll, a lack-latine, and can do nothing” (Latimer, Third Sermon before K. Edward). Sterne uses the word in Tristram Shandy.—Notes and Queries, March 2, 1878.
Dog-cheap.
A C. Mery talys, undated ed. No. 71, “Of the preste that wolde say two gospels for a grote.”
Dogs are hard drove when they eat dogs.
And so of other animals, even wolves. But in Wales relatives will eat or will rob each other for the sake of getting more.
Dogs bark as they are bred.
Dogs barking aloof bite not at hand.
Dogs begin in jest and end in earnest.
Dogs gnaw bones because they cannot swallow them.
Dogs i’ Owdam, pigs i’ Ash’on.
“Teddy Bradley was sent by his master from Oldham with a note and a present of greyhound pups, enclosed in a poke, to a clergyman at Ashton-under-Lyne. He called, of course, at the half-way house to rest his limbs and wet his throttle, some wags the while exchanging the pups for sucking pigs. The clergyman read the note, saw the pigs, took it for an insult, and bundled the messenger out of doors. Teddy again called at the hostelry, to tell his tale and drink his ale, and the wags took the opportunity of exchanging the grunters for whelps. On arriving home, Teddy at once proceeded to tell his master of the strange metamorphosis, and in proof emptied his poke, when out tumbled the pups; whereupon the bewildered messenger swore, ‘Dogs i’ Owdam, Pigs i’ Ash’on.’” I give this rather improbable story as I find it in Mr. Higson’s MSS. Coll. 202.
Dogs never go into mourning when a horse dies.
Dogs ought to bark before they bite.
Dogs run away with whole shoulders.
Not of mutton, but their own; spoken in derision of a miser’s house.—R.
Dogs that bark at a distance never bite.
Dogs that hunt foulest scent the most faults.
Dogs that put up many hares kill none.
Dogs wag their tails not so much to you as your bread.
Dogs will rend swine.
Don Pedro the pedlar.
Stevenson’s Twelve Moneths, 1661, p. 33.
Doncaster cuts.
i.e., horses. They were held in small estimation.
Don’t cry till you are out of the wood.
Don’t have thy cloak to make when it begins to rain.
Don’t hurry, Hopkins.
This seems to be an Americanism. See N. and Q., 3rd S., iii. 211, and compare As hasty as Hopkins, &c.
Don’t let the plough stand to kill a mouse.
Don’t measure other people’s corn by your own bushel.
Don’t sca’d your tongue in other folk’s broth. Irish.
Don’t stand in your own light, like the Mayor of Market-Jew. Cornw.
Dorsetshire dorsers.
“Dorsers are peds, or panniers, carried on the backs of horses, on which higlers use to ride, and carry their commodities. It seems this homely, but most useful instrument, was either first found out, or is the most generally used in this county, where fish jobbers bring up their fish in such contrivances, above a hundred miles from Lyme to London.”—R. See Miss Baker’s Northampt. Gloss. art. P
Doth your nose swell at that?
Double charging will break even a cannon.
Dover-court, all speakers and no hearers.
Allusive to the uproar which takes place annually at Dover Court, near Harwich, where a court is still held. Ray supposed that Dover in Kent was meant, and his editors have not corrected him. But comp. Davis, Suppl. Glossary, 1881, p. 200.
Dover sharks and Deal savages.
In allusion to the rapacity of the boatmen of these two places.
Down came Tit, and away tumbled she arsy versy.
Down the hill goes merrily.
Down with his dust.
i.e., with his money. It is told by Fuller in his anecdote of Henry VIII. and the Abbot of Reading. It was used also by Swift according to a received anecdote.
Downton good now!
Compare, Crawley, God help us!
Draff is good enough for hogs.
Taylor’s Whipping or Snipping of Abuses, 1614.
Draff is your errand, but drink ye would.
Draw not your bow till your arrow is fixed.
Drawn wells are seldom dry.
Drawn wells have sweetest water.
Puteus si hauriatur melior evadit. [Greek]. Basil, in Epist. ad Eustachium medicum. All things, especially men’s parts, are improved and advanced by use and exercise. Standing waters are apt to corrupt and putrefy: weapons laid up and disused do contract rust: nay, the very air, if not agitated and broken with the wind, is thought to be unhealthful and pestilential, especially in this our native country, of which it is said, Anglia ventosa, si non ventosa venenosa.—R.
Drift is as bad as unthrift.
Drink and drought come not always together.
Drink less and go home by daylight, quoth Hendyng.
Rel. Ant., i. 116.
Drink off your drink and steal no lambs.
Drink washes off the daub, and discovers the man.
Drink wine, and have the gout; drink none, and have it too.
Drink wine in winter for cold and in summer for heat.
Drinking kindness is drunken friendship.
Drinking water neither makes a man sick, nor in debt, nor his wife a widow.
Drive not a second nail till the first be clinched.
Drive not too many ploughs at once; some will make foul work.
Drive the nail that will go.
Drive thy business; let not that drive thee.
Poor Richard Improved, 1758, apud Arber’s Garner, iv. 579.
Drop by drop the lake is drained.
Dropping house, and eke smoke, and chiding wives make men fly out of their own house.
Chaucer, Wif of Bathes Prologe.
Drought never brought dearth.
Referring more particularly to the wheat in heavy soils, which is said scarcely to require any rain from first to last.
Drown not thyself to save a drowning man.
Drowning men will catch at a rush.
Drumming is not the way to catch a hare.
This is a different reading of the satirical phrase, To catch a hare with a tabor. Comp. You may catch, &c.