ProverbPerseverance
English origin1474
English origin1474When poverty comes in at the door, friendship leaps out of the window.
Meaning: Financial hardship exposes fair-weather friends who abandon you when material benefit disappears.
Origin: Usually heard as "when poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window." A saying of 1474 already held that love lasts as long as the money endures, and the painter G. F. Watts gave the proverb as the title of a painting in 1879. Hardship tests affection.
Explore another collection: Tongue Twisters
Tricky phrases to practice out loud, from languages around the world.
- El perro de San Roque no tiene rabo porque Ramón Ramírez se lo ha robado. A rolled-'r' workout — every word demands the vibrating trill.
- Erre con erre cigarro, erre con erre barril; rápido ruedan los carros sobre los rieles del ferrocarril. The definitive Spanish rr drill — unrelenting double-r from start to finish.
- Parangaricutirimícuaro Not a sentence but a single word — a legendary 22-letter pronunciation challenge from a r…
Keep exploring