Don't cry over spilt milk

It doesn't do any good to be unhappy about something that has already happened or that can't be helped.

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, no use crying over spilt milk . Don't regret what cannot be undone or rectified, as in The papers you wanted went out in last week's trash, so don't cry over spilt milk . This metaphor for the inability to recover milk once it has been spilled is very old indeed, already appearing as a proverb in James Howell's Paroimiografia (1659). It is sometimes shortened to spilt milk .

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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