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A watched pot never boils

  1. Something we wait for with impatient attention seems to take forever.


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Idioms and Phrases

Anxious waiting does not speed up matters, as in Stop running downstairs for every mail delivery—a watched pot never boils, you know . This hyperbolic adage reflects the experience of anyone who has ever been in a hurry to bring water to a boil, which eventually occurs but can seem to take forever. [Mid-1800s]

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

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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