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- cast pearls before swine
cast pearls before swine
cast (one's) pearls before swine
Fig. to waste something good on someone who doesn't care about it. (From a biblical quotation.) To sing for them is to cast pearls before swine. To serve them French cuisine is like casting one's pearls before swine.
cast pearls before swine
(literary) to offer something valuable to someone who does not understand that it is valuable Giving him advice is just casting pearls before swine. He doesn't listen.
cast pearls before swine
Give something of value of someone who won't appreciate it, as in The old professor felt that lecturing on Dante to unruly undergraduates would be casting pearls before swine . This term comes from the New Testament (Matthew 7:6), appearing in Tyndale's translation (1526). It was repeated often by writers from Shakespeare to Dickens and remains current.