don't look a gift horse in the mouth

listen to the pronunciation of don't look a gift horse in the mouth
English - Turkish
beleş elde edilen, hediye olarak verilen birşeyde eksik ve kusur aranmamalıdır, bu hediye hakkında eleştiri yapılmamalıdır
(Atasözü) Hediye atın dişine bakılmaz
üzümünü ye bağını sorma
English - English
Do not unappreciatively question a gift or handout too closely
do not be critical of a gift
don't look a gift horse in the mouth

    Turkish pronunciation

    dōnt lûk ı gîft hôrs în dhi mauth

    Pronunciation

    /ˈdōnt ˈlo͝ok ə ˈgəft ˈhôrs ən ᴛʜē ˈmouᴛʜ/ /ˈdoʊnt ˈlʊk ə ˈɡɪft ˈhɔːrs ɪn ðiː ˈmaʊθ/

    Etymology

    () This phrase, it seems, can be traced back to St. Jerome who referred to it as a common saying in his introductory remarks to the Epistle to the Ephesians in his translation of the New Testament: "Equi donati dentes non inspiciuntur." A rather mangled literal translation would go something like this: "A given horse's teeth are not inspected." This is evident from parsing the original Latin sentence: Equi (masculine genitive singular) donati (perfect passive (supine) masculine genitive singular) dentes (masculine accusative plural) non (negative adverb) inspiciuntur (3rd person plural present passive indicative). It is likely that English versions are translations of this original Latin; furthermore, the Latin form seems to explain the use of "given" (geuen) in the 1546 version. From early modern English given horse: "No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth." —John Heywood, 1546. Horses' gums recede as they age making the teeth appear to grow long (hence the term, "long in the tooth"). Therefore, inspecting the teeth of a horse given as a gift would mean that recipient is trying to see if the horse is old (undesirable) or young (more desirable). The substitution of "gift" for "given" occurred in 1663 in Butler’s Hudibras, because the iambic tetrameter required a shortening: : He ne’er consider'd it, as loth : To look a Gift-horse in the mouth.
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