- English translation
Like the wraps at the bathhouse, tied around a different man every hour.
- Literal wording
Like the bathhouse waist-cloths: every hour around a man's waist.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying pictures the cloth wraps handed out in a public bathhouse, which are tied around the waist of one bather after another throughout the day. Nothing about them belongs to anyone in particular, and their constant reuse makes them ordinary and worn.
Applied figuratively, it marks something as cheapened by being available to everybody. Whatever is described this way has lost its exclusiveness and worth because anyone at all can take it up, use it, and pass it along.
- When it is used
Use it to dismiss something that has passed through so many hands that it no longer carries any value or distinction. It is a scornful comparison, suited to criticism rather than neutral description; aimed at a person, it lands as a sharp insult.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: Like the wraps at the bathhouse, tied around a different man every hour.