Words worth understanding
Start with the thought in plain English. Then explore the imagery, a practical example, when to use it, and what the saying does not mean.
4,000 entries with editorial explanations. The wider collection also contains entries still awaiting an individual interpretation.
proverb · Traditional
Sharing a difficulty with people who understand it can reduce the feeling of being alone. Mutual recognition may ease the burden without making the underlying problem disappear.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Courtesy may be difficult to sustain when it is consistently met with disregard. The one-sided exchange highlights reciprocity, without requiring politeness to become a bargain or blaming someone for setting a necessary boundary.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Cruelty called the child of anger and revenge links harmful conduct with retaliatory feeling. The saying questions what a wish to strike back may produce.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying compares curses with chickens returning to roost. It imagines hostile words or wishes coming back to affect their source.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying pictures someone damaging their own face to spite it. It describes retaliation that harms the person pursuing it.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Owing money can make hardship feel especially restrictive because future resources are already committed. The saying emphasises the burden of obligation.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying makes discretion a greater part of courage. It values judgment about when to act, pause or withdraw.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The instruction links division with conquest. In the supplied gloss, it describes weakening opposition by preventing a group from acting together.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Insult postponed until after crossing a river pictures dependence shaping the timing of confrontation. The saying gives the crocodile a role in a precarious relationship.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
A serious action may be preceded by a warning or an expression of anger. The barking image encourages attention to possible signals, without promising that every threat will be carried out or every harmful action announced.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying postpones boasting until an enemy is dead. As an explicit analogy, it warns against claiming victory before the threat has actually ended.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Leaving alone what is not bothering oneself advises restraint in interference. The saying questions involvement without an identified reason.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Avoid provoking a quiet problem without a useful reason. An unnecessary intervention can revive a conflict or danger that is currently inactive.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Do not let a small disagreement needlessly destroy a worthwhile friendship. Consider the importance of the issue and seek a proportionate response before turning irritation into a lasting quarrel.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Distance from a centre of power can mean distance from its pressures and intrigues. The saying values relief from courtly concerns, but being outside influential circles does not remove every worry or make exclusion a desirable condition.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional (French-language collection)
People may avoid a place where the conditions make interference difficult. The boiling pot represents an active obstacle to those who would settle there.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Peace said to require being blind, deaf and dumb equates nonengagement with avoiding disturbance. The saying uses disability terms in a harsh image of withdrawing from what happens around oneself.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying recommends relinquishing resentment, forgetting a wrong and forgiving as a path towards a happier life. That is an aspiration, not a guarantee or a duty to excuse ongoing harm.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The phrase urges leaving a wrong behind rather than repeatedly returning to it. Forgiving and forgetting are separate possibilities, and neither should be demanded as proof that someone has dealt with harm correctly.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Forgiveness said to contain a pleasure absent from revenge values releasing or revising a hostile response. The saying offers an alternative source of satisfaction.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Forgiving distinguished from forgetting separates a chosen response to a wrong from erasing its memory. The saying allows remembrance alongside release.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Silence as a tree yielding tranquillity makes quiet a source of calm. The saying connects restraint in speech or stillness with a hoped-for peaceful result.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Considerate words can calm an overheated exchange. Acknowledgement and clear, respectful language may reduce tension enough for people to address what actually needs to happen.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The rhyme links a wife’s happiness with a happier shared life. It makes one partner’s wellbeing stand for the condition of the relationship.
Read the explanation and example ↗