- English translation
Like the grave: whatever goes in never comes back out.
- Literal wording
Like the grave, it does not give back a dead one.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying likens something to a grave, which swallows the dead and never releases them. It marks a perilous situation or undertaking as one that consumes whoever attempts it, so that the person, effort, or resources committed to it are gone for good with no chance of recovery.
A second, more playful application targets a greedy eater. Such a person is compared to the grave because nothing put in front of them ever comes back: they refuse no dish, leave no leftovers, and devour whatever they can find.
- When it is used
Use it to warn that a venture, place, or situation is a point of no return, where whoever goes in is lost. Applied to someone who eats everything and never declines food, it can tease, but because it invokes death and burial it may sound mocking or rude.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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