Idiom | Cry over Spilled Milk |
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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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