Meaning & use
cast pearls before swine
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Meaning
phraseidiomformalliteraryfigurative
To offer something valuable or fine to people who cannot appreciate it and will give it no respect.
Grammar: Verb phrase that changes with tense: she cast pearls before swine. The pearls are the valuable thing and swine are the unappreciative audience.
Patterns
- cast pearls before swine
- feel like casting pearls before swine
Teaching poetry to a bored class felt like casting pearls before swine.
He cooked a gourmet meal for people who only wanted ketchup, and said he had cast pearls before swine.
Why play your best music to a crowd that isn't listening? It's casting pearls before swine.
Word forms
| third person singular | casts pearls before swine |
|---|---|
| past tense | cast pearls before swine |
| past participle | cast pearls before swine |
| present participle | casting pearls before swine |
Common combinations
- feel like casting pearls before swine
- Explaining the theory to them felt like casting pearls before swine.
- accused of casting pearls before swine
- The curator was accused of casting pearls before swine.
- no point casting pearls before swine
- There is no point casting pearls before swine.
- cast pearls before swine and
- Don't cast pearls before swine and expect applause.
Synonyms and how they differ
- waste effort
- Waste effort is plain and neutral, whereas the idiom adds the idea that the audience is unworthy.
- throw away
- Throw away suggests carelessly discarding something, not offering it to people unable to value it.
- cast bread upon the waters
- This related idiom means to do good without expecting a return, so it differs in being hopeful, not scornful.
Word family
Commonly confused: cast pearls before swine or cast aspersions?
cast pearls before swine vs cast aspersions
To cast aspersions is to make damaging remarks about someone, which is quite different from wasting something valuable on an audience.
Practice
Which situation best fits the idiom cast pearls before swine?
Choose one answer.
The idiom is about offering something valuable to people who cannot or will not appreciate it. In the other options the audience values what it receives.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cast pearls before swine”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.