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Arabic · Arabic scriptProverb: Verified

«جُحَا أَوْلَى بْلَحْمِ طُورُهْ»

Meanings

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Meaning: Verified
English translation

Juha has the first claim to the meat of his own bull.

Literal wording

Juha has the greater right to the meat of his bull.

Meaning and lesson

Possession brings precedence: whoever owns something stands first in line for it, ahead of every other person. The saying packs this principle of rightful claim into a short, memorable form.

The picture behind it is concrete. Juha, a well-known figure of comic anecdotes, appears with his own bull, and the meat of that animal is naturally his before it could be anyone else's. Here طور means a bull, not its more familiar sense of mountain.

When it is used

Suitable when someone wants to affirm that a thing belongs first to its owner, and that the owner's claim to it comes ahead of anyone else's. The proverb states this principle briefly through a familiar folk character.

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