- English translation
However much the wheat wanders, it ends up at the mill.
- Literal wording
The wheat goes around, and it comes to the mill.
- Meaning and lesson
Everything eventually reaches the end it was meant for. Wheat exists to be ground into flour, so no matter how long it is carried from place to place, its journey finishes at the mill. Delays and wandering do not change a thing's final purpose.
The saying can also serve as a veiled threat. The speaker suggests that someone who now keeps a safe distance, beyond the speaker's reach, will sooner or later have to come back and deal with them, just as grain cannot avoid the millstone forever.
- When it is used
Use it to remark that a person or thing will end up where it belongs despite detours. Said pointedly to someone seemingly out of reach, it becomes a quiet warning that they must eventually face the speaker; context decides which tone is meant.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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