The collection / 675 fragments
Explore passages mentioning time, hour. Topic suggestions use transparent word matching, not scholarly classification. Editorial meanings and lexical matches are discovery aids, not independent authentication of a quotation.
Meaning: The rhyme makes a husband dread a clear, pleasant Candlemas as strongly as his wife’s death. It exaggerates the fear attached to a calendar-weather sign.
Meaning: The saying imagines Candlemas as the point when candles can be put aside. Throwing away the candle and holder exaggerates a sense of reduced need for them.
Meaning: An unexpected change can happen quickly after a long period with little change. The saying expresses the uneven timing of events, not a prediction that a particular opportunity will arrive.
Meaning: An occasion that happens only occasionally can be a reason to enjoy it while it is here. The proverb presents Christmas as a special celebration, without requiring extravagance, a particular faith or participation from everyone.
Meaning: The saying pairs a snowless Christmas with a snowy Easter. It imagines one seasonal condition being answered by its opposite later.
Meaning: A much-discussed future occasion eventually becomes the present one. The saying notices how anticipation and repeated conversation accompany the passage of time, without suggesting that talking makes an event happen or that every expected event will arrive.
Meaning: The saying predicts a severe winter when Christmas falls on a Monday. It assigns weather significance to the weekday of a calendar celebration.
Meaning: Prepare what you can before the need becomes urgent. Waiting until a foreseeable problem arrives may leave too little time to create the protection or resources that would help.
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: Regret cannot restore an opportunity or resource after it has been used up. The saying warns about waiting until the consequences are complete, while leaving room for repair, support or a different next step where those remain possible.
Meaning: An early view of a crop may disappoint while a later view encourages hope. May and June contrast stages of development rather than one permanent verdict.
Meaning: The saying denies courts an almanac. As a qualified analogy, it can suggest that expectations about ordinary timing do not settle what happens in a courtly or legal setting.
Meaning: Something that appears frail may last longer than observers expect. The creaking-gate image questions confident predictions from outward signs, rather than promising durability, dismissing a real fault or forecasting a person’s health.
Meaning: The saying gives different trading instructions according to whether the cuckoo arrives when the thorn is bare or full. A seasonal sign is made the basis for opposite changes in livestock and grain.
Meaning: Doing something once can create an expectation that it will continue. The saying warns about a precedent becoming customary, without proving that a single occasion permanently binds anyone to repeat it.
Meaning: An activity may depend on continuing support. The pipe-and-dance image asks what sustains the action, without assuming every activity must stop when one form of support ends or that people exist only to respond to another’s wishes.
Meaning: Depending on a benefit that will arrive only when another person is gone can leave you waiting indefinitely. Build your plans around available possibilities rather than a vacancy or inheritance you cannot control.
Meaning: The timing of death cannot be treated as an appointment people can count on controlling. The calendar image expresses uncertainty about life’s duration, encouraging awareness of limits without making a prediction about any individual or demanding constant urgency.
Meaning: Death is imagined as unable to hear objections, so a protest cannot make it negotiate. The saying expresses mortality’s finality rather than a judgment about how someone should feel about loss.
Meaning: The phrase marks the coincidence of someone arriving just as they are being discussed. Its devil image is a playful figure of speech in this use, not evidence of supernatural causation or a judgement that the arriving person is wicked.
Meaning: The saying uses St. Bartholomew as a calendar marker for the arrival of cold dew. It associates an observance with a seasonal condition.
Meaning: Death is possible at any age, while old age makes the end of life impossible to ignore. The contrast is a reminder of mortality.
Meaning: Enjoyable conversation can make time feel shorter. The saying praises the experience of good company and engaging talk, without claiming that conversation changes the clock or suits everyone in the same way.