- English translation
The grain keeps streaming through the hopper, one lot after another.
- Literal wording
The grain is following close on the hopper.
- Meaning and lesson
The picture comes from a grinding mill: grain is placed in an earthenware hopper pierced at the bottom, and it falls through in a steady stream onto the millstone. The saying uses this image for anything that becomes plentiful and arrives in close succession, each portion following hard on the last.
It may also be applied to a person burdened with a continuous run of tasks, where one job comes straight after another until the work swallows all of that person's time, much as the grain keeps passing to the stone without a pause.
- When it is used
Say it when things accumulate in an unbroken sequence, such as goods, requests, or events, or when describing someone whose assigned work arrives in so steady a stream that no time is left for anything else.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: The grain keeps streaming through the hopper, one lot after another.