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- sadder but wiser
sadder but wiser
sadder but wiser
Cliché unhappy but knowledgeable [about someone or something--after an unpleasant event]. After the accident, I was sadder but wiser, and would never make the same mistake again. We left the meeting sadder but wiser, knowing that we could not ever come to an agreement with Becky's aunt.
sadder but wiser
if someone is sadder but wiser after a bad experience, they have suffered but they have also learned something from it He bought a second-hand car and ended up sadder but wiser after a series of breakdowns and expensive repairs.
sadder but wiser
Unhappy but having learned from one's mistakes, as in Sadder but wiser, she's never going near poison ivy again. The pairing of these two adjectives was first recorded in Samuel Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798).