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
Explaining to someone described as ignorant compared with making a camel jump exaggerates the difficulty of communication. The saying treats understanding as a demanding undertaking.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The phrase compares someone’s eyes with a hawk’s. It praises sharp observation or noticing details through an animal image.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Repeating facts as facts insists that reality cannot be changed merely by preference. The saying values recognizing what evidence establishes.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying separates a fact’s existence from the attention paid to it. Ignoring something is not presented as changing whether it is true.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying treats failure as an opening for a better-informed new beginning. It emphasises reflection before another attempt.
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The saying welcomes truth and the clarity represented by daylight. It values bringing matters into view, while leaving room for privacy, considerate timing and a fair way to establish what is actually true.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
An ignorant person to be feared more than a lion gives missing understanding an exaggerated danger. The saying warns through a human-and-animal comparison.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
Fear and hope as parents of God present belief through human emotions. The saying proposes a source for religious ideas rather than treating divinity as a literal child.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying imagines February filling ditches with dark rainwater or white snow and favours the white form. It assigns value to contrasting winter conditions.
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The saying presents restrained eating as a way to defy the physician. It makes one habit sound sufficient to escape the need for medical help.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
A concise statement can communicate more clearly than unnecessary elaboration. The saying values economy of expression, while leaving room for the detail, questions and explanations a particular situation genuinely needs.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The saying ranks first impressions as the most enduring. It gives an initial encounter special weight in how someone may later be remembered.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
First people made from sticks and later roaming as apes presents a creation-and-transformation narrative. The sentence describes an origin image rather than an ordinary maxim.
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The instruction puts thinking before action. It asks a decision to be considered before its consequences are set in motion.
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A poorly checked calculation or expectation may leave an arrangement short of what it needs. The saying criticises careless reckoning, without making every shortage proof of foolishness or personal fault.
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Fools appearing wise while silent contrasts an impression with knowledge that has not been expressed. The saying questions judgment made from quietness alone.
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Questions from fools exceeding wise people’s answers contrasts who asks with who can respond. The saying exposes a limit in apparent expertise.
Read the explanation and example ↗quote · Alexander Pope
A person who does not understand the risks may act more boldly than someone who recognizes how difficult or delicate the situation is.
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A poorly considered arrangement can create difficulty even for someone competent. The stools-and-stumbling image directs attention to avoidable obstacles, without making intelligence a guarantee against mistakes or an excuse to insult others.
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The phrase uses donkey’s ages to emphasise a very long time. It gives duration an exaggerated animal-associated form.
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Optimists seeing flowers in weeds and pessimists seeing weeds in flowers contrast evaluations of the same kind of thing. The saying highlights the influence of outlook.
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The saying makes four eyes better than two. It values another person’s perspective in observing or checking something.
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The saying predicts failure for a voyage begun on Friday. The rhyme treats a weekday as an unlucky condition without establishing a causal connection.
Read the explanation and example ↗proverb · Traditional
The rhyme takes frogs croaking in a lagoon as a sign of rain soon. Sound becomes the cue for its short-term forecast.
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