Apedia

Cry Milk Spilled Wallet Fell Overboard Crying Complain

Idiom Cry over Spilled Milk
Example I'm sorry your wallet fell overboard, but there's no use crying over spilled milk.
Meaning to cry or complain about an event that has already taken place and can't be changed
Origin This famous saying was first used by writers in the mid-1600s and popularized by Canadian humorist Thomas Haliburton around 1836. The idea behind it is that if milk spills out of a container, you can't get it back in again, so you might as well not cry over it. Note: Sometimes you'll see "spilled" spelled as "spilt." That's because this is an old idiom and "spilt" is an old spelling.

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