Arabic proverbs

So, was it a winning throw or a wash?

The image comes from ṭāb, a game played by casting four palm-rib sticks; ṭāb also names its winning throw, three face down and one face up. An even two-and-two split, nicknamed 'two one-eyed ones', brings neither win nor loss. Here ʿūr is game jargon for that split, not a remark about anyone's eyesight.

“I’ll water you with promises, cumin.”

This proverb reproaches someone who repeatedly offers assurances yet fails to deliver what those assurances promise. It conveys frustration when pledges accumulate while the expected action or result remains absent.

Do not be intimidated by someone whose abilities you can match.

The saying advises against being overawed by a person who is no more capable than oneself. Its image of putting one’s foot where another has put theirs means being able to keep pace, perform the same tasks, or reach comparable standing—not a literal act.

"Is my aunt here with you?" "No, she hasn't come." And off he went.

The colloquial saying sketches an exchange so short it barely counts as a visit. A caller asks whether his maternal aunt happens to be in the house, hears that she has not come, and is gone again. The aunt is incidental; the time that passed equals only that single question and its curt answer.

Even as it dies, the chick keeps its eye on the feed.

The saying holds that inclinations formed in youth stay with a person for life. Like a chick that never stops fixing its gaze on the grain it was raised on, people keep the appetites and habits they grew up with until their final days.

Whatever you send ahead with your own hands, you will find waiting for you.

The saying holds that a person's deeds are never wasted. Whatever someone sends forward through their own effort will be there to greet them later, so everyone eventually encounters the results their own conduct has laid up for them.

When you enter a community whose people worship a calf, help provide its fodder and feed it.

The saying counsels restraint when a newcomer faces a community united behind a custom or conviction. Directly challenging such a group can invite harm, so it advises outward compliance rather than open resistance.

Like the old women at a wedding: they eat their fill, then make fun of the food.

The saying pictures elderly women at a wedding feast who eat everything set before them and then trade sly, teasing remarks about the very dishes they enjoyed. The joke lies in the contradiction between eating with appetite and mocking with veiled wit rather than open insult.

Some hearts are barred shut against care, and some hearts melt away with worry.

People differ sharply in how trouble reaches them. Some hearts seem shut behind a gate, drūb here meaning doors rather than paths, so sorrow knocks and cannot enter; others are so tender that even a small care wears them down until they seem to dissolve.

If you toy with a cat, expect to be scratched.

Choosing to engage with someone or something known to be harmful means accepting the likelihood of being hurt. The saying warns that foreseeable danger is not erased simply because one approaches it casually or playfully.

A fig is not some fig-like imitation, a canal is not the open sea, and a servant is not the master: the difference shows at a glance.

The saying rebukes someone for placing themself on the same level as a person regarded as clearly superior. It emphasizes a disparity so plain that, in the speaker’s view, the comparison itself is misplaced.

What difference can one twig make in a whole bundle?

The image is a single twig bound up among many others. Once inside the bundle, it loses its separate weight. The proverb asks, half rhetorically, what such a lone piece could accomplish, implying that one individual has little power to shape what a whole group does.

All you who are our kind, come live in our quarter.

The saying calls on those who share one's nature, circumstances or outlook to come and settle alongside one another in the same quarter. Its core idea is that people who resemble each other get along most easily, so like-minded folk should gather in one neighborhood and keep each other company.

Like snot: revolting, and there's no getting a grip on it.

The saying likens someone to nasal mucus, a substance that repels anyone who sees it and also slips away from any attempt to grab it. The target is a person who is unpleasant to be around and at the same time evasive, so you can neither stomach them nor get a firm hold on them.

He's like a fresh chickpea pod: all swollen shell and nothing inside.

The saying draws on fresh chickpeas sold on the stalk, whose colloquial name suggests 'the full one', though the papery pod swells far larger than its small seed and sometimes holds none. Squeeze one and it pops with nothing inside: a bulge named for fullness that delivers almost nothing.

Anyone who treats you exactly as he treats himself has done you no injustice.

The saying makes equal treatment the yardstick of fairness. When a person gives you the same standard, share, or consideration they would claim for themselves, you have no just cause for grievance against them. Its masculine wording is generic and applies to anyone.

Sparkling rings on repulsive hands.

Costly decoration cannot supply beauty that is absent. However brightly jewels shine, the hands wearing them remain unpleasant to look at. The saying ridicules the hope that outward ornament can make up for a basic lack of grace or comeliness.

He's a marked man; everyone knows what he's about.

The saying describes a person who is plainly marked out in the eyes of others, as if a visible tuft sat on top of their head. The image is figurative, not about literal wool or headwear. Everyone can identify them at a glance, and their affairs are no longer private.

Hire a shepherd for your flock, but keep an eye on the shepherd.

Putting someone in charge of your affairs does not release you from responsibility. Once you have entrusted your flock to a shepherd, you still need to look in on him and keep track of how he handles what is yours. The Arabic plays on one root meaning both to herd and to watch over.

A harmful nature does not disappear merely because someone has made a pilgrimage.

Traditionally framed through a cat that returns from pilgrimage unchanged, the saying judges someone whose harmful habits are so ingrained that a visibly pious act does not reform their conduct. It contrasts outward devotion with behavior that remains cruel, selfish, or damaging.

Unable to deal with the donkey, he took it out on the saddle.

The saying ridicules misdirected aggression. Someone fails to master or punish the real source of trouble, here the stubborn donkey, so he turns on the packsaddle, an inert pad that cannot resist, and makes an ironic show of cleverness or toughness over that easy victory. Some versions have him bite or strike the saddle instead, with the same sense.

Scatter seed by the full handful, and you will gather stalks by the full handful.

The saying advises a planter to scatter seed by the handful rather than sparingly. It pictures the first full hand as seed sown now, which later becomes plant growth that can be gathered.

Only my master is worse than my lady.

The speaker sets two people side by side and declares that the one others hold in higher regard is in fact the worse of the pair. The saying punctures a preference built on mistaken judgment, pointing out that the favored choice falls below the one passed over.

Every camel is in the scuffle except ours, which just sits there on its knees.

The saying targets a person who stays put and keeps out of a matter that plainly calls for effort, even though everyone around them has already stirred into action. The busy camels show the general mobilization, and the kneeling one stands for this particular holdout's inertia, not for laziness in general or for camels themselves.

If a month holds nothing for you, don't bother counting off its days.

Counting down the days of a month makes sense when something waits for you at its close, such as wages or a ration of provisions. Having nothing in the month means receiving no such pay or provision when it ends, so tallying its days is pointless labor, and the saying advises sparing yourself that trouble.

Cut exactly to fit the shoulder.

The image comes from tailoring. The qabb, the part of a shirt that lies across the upper body near the neck and shoulders, is cut to match the shoulder of the person who will wear it. When that is done well, the garment neither pinches nor hangs loose with spare cloth.

Even a blazing disaster can be ashes by morning; God is guiding what happens.

The saying consoles someone facing a crisis that appears overwhelming. Trouble can flare up with the force of a fire, yet its intensity may fade sooner than expected, so despair is not the only possible response.

He's like a mill: he only runs properly once he's been hammered from behind.

The saying describes a person who performs or behaves well only under firm pressure. Left alone or treated softly, such a person drifts, slacks off, or goes wrong; prodding, urging forward, scolding, and strict handling are what make them function properly and keep them working.

The skipper has one plan in his head, and the deckhand has another.

The saying pictures a boat where the captain, here the vessel's master rather than a political chief or generic boss, and the deckhand each keep a private mental tally, not a money ledger, of what should happen next. Though both stand on the same vessel, neither has grasped what the other is actually aiming for.

You used to sleep among goat kids; now you have a place from which to look out over the neighbors.

The proverb rebukes a person whose circumstances have risen while their conduct remains base. Material improvement or higher standing, it says, does not by itself bring better manners, restraint, or honorable character.

You reap what you sow.

A person is held to encounter results that match what they have done before. Good deeds are associated with good returns, while harmful conduct is expected to bring harmful consequences.

A people's leader is the one who serves them.

The saying claims that a group's true leader shows that rank by looking after its members. Here the 'great one' means the head or chief, not someone large or merely older. Authority is measured by care, effort, and attention to others' needs, not by privilege.

The way is wide enough for a camel to get through.

At its plainest, the saying points out how roomy something is. A passage wide enough for a camel to walk through clearly has space to spare, so the image works as a vivid way of calling a place, opening, or object generously broad and far from cramped.

The hole is too tight for a mouse, yet someone says to ram a pestle in after it.

The picture sets a burrow too cramped for even a mouse against a call to force a heavy pounding tool, such as a pestle or mallet, in behind it. At its core, the saying mocks any idea that piles something large onto a space, purse or person that cannot cope with something small.

Even a petty post can feel like life itself to someone who craves power.

The saying holds that rank is as vital to a person hungry for authority as life itself, even when the post is a humble one. Its image is of command over the making of dried fuel from dung mixed with straw, the humblest village chore, which shows how far the craving reaches.

The gourd vine is reaching out, and its yield is on the way.

The image is a gourd plant whose runners have stretched out and multiplied, the stage just before it bears fruit. Its yield, meaning practical benefit rather than moral goodness, is spoken of as having arrived, though the crop is still forming and nothing is harvested yet.

A thief sets out either to kill or to be killed.

The saying portrays the burglar as someone who, upon setting out to rob, has already resigned himself to two possible endings. The repeated يا marks an either-or choice, not direct address. He will either overpower whoever stands in his way or fall at their hands. Nothing safe lies between those outcomes.

Someone who gossips to you will also gossip about you.

A person who carries harmful tales or disparaging reports about others should not automatically be treated as trustworthy. Their willingness to pass along such talk warns that they may speak similarly about the listener.

Shield your candle from the wind, and it will keep shining.

The image is a small flame that lasts only when someone shields it from the wind. The shielding here means protecting it from harm, not hiding it away in secret; something fragile but valuable keeps shining under protection.

What is right lies with others, not with you.

The saying concerns a person whose view departs from the truth. It places God's law, standing here for rightness itself, in someone else's keeping, so the addressee's position is marked as falling on the wrong side.

Camel, if you leave the feed, who's going to eat it?

The saying points to the person best equipped for a task. If the strongest, most able one, pictured as a camel facing its feed, cannot or will not finish the job, there is little hope that anyone less capable will take it on and succeed. The image is figurative, not literally about animals or eating.

You can tell a bright night already by late afternoon.

A festive, joyful evening announces itself well before nightfall: by late afternoon one can already sense whether the coming night will be full of warmth, company, and delight. Its brightness is chiefly that of good company and cheer, not merely moonlight, and the image ties an occasion's quality to the mood visible hours ahead.

Everyone knows where the sun comes up over their own house.

The saying holds that each person understands the conditions of their own home better than anyone looking in from outside. The sun is figurative, standing for a household's inner workings rather than literal sunrise direction; residents know the hidden realities of their own lives.

Only your own flesh and blood will shoulder your troubles.

The saying holds that real concern for a person's troubles comes from kin. Here blood means kinship, not physical blood or violence: a child or close relative feels the hardship as their own, is grieved by it, and shares the weight rather than merely watching.

May neither the high prices nor the man who measures the grain ever return.

This is said when an unwelcome condition has ended, expressing the hope that it will not return. The dismissal extends to the hardship itself and to a person associated with it in the speaker’s memory or blame.

You can't make tent pegs out of an okra stalk.

The saying points out that some things simply lack the substance a particular job demands. Its سجرة is a colloquial pronunciation of شجرة, meaning here the okra plant or stalk, not a large tree. An okra stalk is soft and hollow, so no effort will turn it into a peg firm enough to drive into the ground.

Hunger keeps no faith.

The saying personifies hunger with the weighty religious word kāfir, unbeliever: a force indifferent to religious law. It labels no person or group. A starving person may be pushed into acts their religion would normally forbid, simply to get food, so blame shifts from the individual to the pressure of an empty stomach.

He's like a walnut: you get nothing out of him unless you crack him open.

The saying compares a certain kind of person to a walnut: whatever is worthwhile inside stays locked behind a hard shell until someone breaks through it. Soft approaches achieve nothing, and only firm, forceful treatment gets results.

Like the buckets on a waterwheel, the little ones piss on the big ones.

The picture is a rotating waterwheel fitted with clay pots. As the wheel turns, the pots spill into one another, and drops from a small pot fall onto a bigger one beneath it, which the saying likens to the little one urinating on the big one. The words for small and big rhyme.

Lunch way down in Upper Egypt? Why, that's practically next door.

The speaker pretends that a midday meal waiting in far-off Upper Egypt, a byword for a long and arduous journey, is just around the corner. Here غدوة means lunch, not 'tomorrow' as in some other Arabic varieties. It is the voice of a sponger whose hunger for free food makes any distance or difficulty seem trivial.