Question

Old Wives' Tale a superstition; a belief or practice not based on fact

Accepted Answer

Wearing garlic around your neck won't scare off evil. That's just an old wives' tale. This idiom has a long history. Plato, a famous Greek philosopher who lived around 300 b.c., first used this phrase. In the 1300s it appeared in English. Then Erasmus, a Dutch scholar, put it in his writings in the 1500s. The "old wives" in this idiom refer to people during the olden days who gave advice based on superstitions. Some examples of these "tales" are feed a cold and starve a fever," "don't touch a frog or you'll get warts," and "it's bad luck to walk under a ladder."

Idiom	Old Wives' Tale
Example	Wearing garlic around your neck won't scare off evil. That's just an old wives' tale.
Meaning	a superstition; a belief or practice not based on fact
Origin	This idiom has a long history. Plato, a famous Greek philosopher who lived around 300 b.c., first used this phrase. In the 1300s it appeared in English. Then Erasmus, a Dutch scholar, put it in his writings in the 1500s. The "old wives" in this idiom refer to people during the olden days who gave advice based on superstitions. Some examples of these "tales" are feed a cold and starve a fever," "don't touch a frog or you'll get warts," and "it's bad luck to walk under a ladder."

Wives Tale Based Idiom Wearing Garlic Neck Scare