A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

hatched see don’t COUNT your chickens before they are hatched.

hate see BETTER a dinner of herbs than a stalled ox where hate is.

What you HAVE, hold

c 1450 Towneley Play of Killing of Abel (EETS) 1.142 It is better hold that I haue

then go from doore to doore and craue. 1546 J. HEYWOOD Dialogue of Proverbs i.x. D1

Hold fast whan ye haue it (quoth she) by my lyfe. 1876 I. BANKS Manchester Man I. x.

Then .. rang, clear and distinct, Humphrey Chetham’s motto—’Quod tuum, tene!’ (What

you have, hold!) 1979 Times 23 Nov. 5 There had been a simple ‘what we have we hold’

approach by the established parties. property

You cannot HAVE your cake and eat it

You cannot consume or spend something and still keep possession of it: once the cake is
eaten, it is gone. The positions of have and eat are often reversed.

1546 J. HEYWOOD Dialogue of Proverbs II. ix. L2 I trowe ye raue, Wolde ye bothe

eate your cake, and haue your cake? 1611 J. DAVIES Scourge of Folly no. 271 A man

cannot eat his cake and haue it stil. 1812 in R. C. Knopf Document Transcriptions of War

of 1812 (1959) VI. 204 We cannot have our cake and eat it too. 1938 P. MCGUIRE

Funeral in Eden ii. Not that the savages were especially savage. They have always been a

sensitive people, and when they ate a man they probably felt genuinely sorry that they

could not have their cake and eat it, so to speak. 2002 R. J. BERNSTEIN Radical Evil 32

Why does Kant allow himself to get entangled in such difficulties and paradoxes? It looks

as if he wants to have his cake and eat it too!

have see also the MORE you get, the more you want; NOTHING venture, nothing have;
what you SPEND, you have; you can have TOO much of a good thing.

haw see when all FRUIT fails, welcome haws.

hawk see a CLEVER hawk hides its claws.