- English translation
Every well has its drain right beside it.
- Literal wording
Every well has a drain facing it.
- Meaning and lesson
Whatever comes in has an exit waiting for it. The saying pictures water drawn from a well and spilled on the ground, where a nearby drain or channel, not a second well or reservoir, carries it away. The image is economic: each gain is matched by some outlet through which it is spent.
The tone is one of resigned realism about money. It observes that earnings rarely accumulate, because new needs, costs, or obligations arise alongside them, so a person's resources tend to flow out as quickly as they arrive.
- When it is used
Say it when someone wonders why a new income or windfall has not left them better off, or to remind someone that every earning will soon meet a matching expense. It suits a resigned or wry remark about household budgets rather than a scolding.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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