(if you) sing before breakfast, (you'll) cry before supper イディオム

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Sing for your supper

If you have to sing for your supper, you have to work to get the pay or reward you need or want.

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covered-dish supper|covered-dish|potluck|potluck s

A meal to which each guest brings a share of the food. Dolly made a chicken casserole for the covered-dish supper.

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sing for one's supper|sing|supper

v. phr., informal To have to work for what one desires. I realized a long time ago that I had to sing for my supper if I wanted to get ahead in my profession.

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sing for one's supper

sing for one's supper
Work for one's pay or reward, as in Entertaining visiting scientists is part of the job; you know I have to sing for my supper. This metaphoric term alludes to wandering minstrels who performed in taverns and were paid with a meal. First recorded in 1609, it gained currency with the familiar nursery rhyme, “Little Tommy Tucker, sings for his supper” (c. 1744).

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supper

supper
see sing for one's supper.

(if you) sing afore breakfast, (you'll) cry afore supper

1. proverb If one is too blissful or optimistic at the alpha of the day, one runs the accident of accepting a far fouler affection by the end of it. The bad-tempered old man, anytime antipathetic of others' happiness, scolded the babe bustling to herself, saying, "If you sing afore breakfast, you'll cry afore supper!" A: "I anticipation the day was activity to about-face out so well, but aggregate has gone wrong!" B: "Ah, well, sing afore breakfast, cry afore supper."2. proverb One should not bless one's achievements afore one's business has absolutely begun. A: "This new artefact is activity to barrage our aggregation aback to the beginning of the industry!" B: "Maybe let's delay until it's absolutely on the bazaar afore patting ourselves on the back. If you sing afore breakfast, you'll cry afore supper."Learn more: before, cry, sing, supper

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