Etymology Journal · H
Have your cake and eat it too
Meaning
- The impossible desire to possess two mutually exclusive things at the same time. It describes the greed of wanting to keep your treasure and spend it as well.
Sarcastic, cautionary, wise
Used in a sentence
- You can't work part-time and expect a full-time bonus, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
- He wants to be single but have someone waiting at home; he wants to have his cake and eat it too.
- Stop trying to have your cake and eat it too.
The backstory
The phrase is centuries old, appearing in various forms in 16th-century English literature. It is often misunderstood by people who think it means eating a cake and still having it, which is physically impossible.
Heard in
Nationwide
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