The collection / 3,980 fragments
Traditional sayings from a documented English collection, with reviewed meanings for an expanding editorial selection.
Meaning: Protect what you will need afterward before taking an action that puts it at risk. Keeping clothes safe while swimming becomes an image of preparation and attention to foreseeable consequences.
Meaning: A difficult situation may still contain something useful or hopeful. Looking for a benefit can help you respond without pretending that the difficulty is good.
Meaning: What helps create an obstacle may later be obscured by it. The sun and its clouds give a vivid image of a cause losing visibility behind its own result.
Meaning: Clouds seen over the hills are imagined to bring rain or low cloud down to the mills. The saying links a visible higher place with conditions expected below it.
Meaning: A difficult period can give way to a better one. Clouds and clear weather provide an image of change, offering perspective without promising when improvement will come or suggesting that practical help is unnecessary.
Meaning: An unpromising beginning need not determine how the rest of an experience develops. The cloudy-morning image encourages leaving room for improvement, while it should not be treated as a weather forecast or a promise that every difficulty ends well.
Meaning: Being in clover pictures comfortable circumstances and an abundance of what one needs. The expression can describe an interval of ease or advantage, but it does not explain how that position arose or imply that everyone should be equally comfortable.
Meaning: Even someone regarded as unsophisticated may recognise a practical need. The cloak in rain illustrates elementary precaution, while the saying’s dismissive label should not be used to judge a person’s worth or ability.
Meaning: Plan your spending or ambitions to fit the resources actually available. Adjusting the scope of a project can be wiser than committing to something you cannot presently sustain.
Meaning: An impressive appearance does not establish good character or considerate conduct. The bright coat questions an outward sign of status, without making plain clothing a guarantee of virtue or judging people by a different appearance.
Meaning: Mending and patching stand for practical skills that keep useful things in service. The saying values the ability to meet everyday needs, rather than guaranteeing continuous employment or blaming people who cannot find work despite having skills.
Meaning: Advice should recognise the boundaries of the adviser’s knowledge. The cobbler image cautions against extending authority beyond relevant expertise, while leaving room to learn, ask questions and contribute from experience.
Meaning: The saying imagines a shoemaker’s wife having the poorest shoes despite living close to the relevant skill. It points to nearby needs being neglected while a person attends to work for others.
Meaning: The saying predicts different weather from whether the cock or hen moults first. The order of two animal changes is made a sign of variable or harsh conditions.
Meaning: The saying places a cock’s crow before a hen’s movement. It gives a voice and a following action different roles without supplying a wider setting.
Meaning: People may feel especially confident in familiar surroundings or where they have influence. The cock on its own dunghill pictures that local assurance, without proving that confidence is false or that everyone behaves the same way away from home.
Meaning: When resources are scarce, shared provision may be limited. The contrast between coin and commons connects available means with what a group can supply.
Meaning: Having more money can bring more responsibilities or worries alongside its benefits. The repeated much links possessions with their management, without proving that wealth inevitably causes unhappiness or that lacking money is preferable.
Meaning: The saying regards a cold April as a sign of a well-filled barn later. It turns an unwelcome immediate condition into a hoped-for harvest benefit.
Meaning: The saying connects cold, windy May weather with a full barn later. It expresses confidence that the named conditions will produce ample provision.
Meaning: An unpromising or reserved appearance may conceal a capacity that becomes evident under suitable conditions. The flint image encourages openness to possibility, without guaranteeing hidden talent or requiring someone to prove themselves through pressure.
Meaning: An undertaking is compromised when its guiding purpose is harmful. The devil carrying the colours pictures a troubling cause at the head of the effort.
Meaning: Before attempting an unfamiliar or unpredictable task, check that the basic preparations are secure. The young colt and tightened saddle picture readiness for uncertainty.
Meaning: A third person can change the intimacy or ease of a conversation between two. The saying describes one possible social arrangement, without establishing that groups of three are unwelcome or that an outsider deserves exclusion.