gift horse | Idiomator

Meaning: (idiomatic)An apparent gift, that has substantial associated costs or drawbacks, especially a gift that does not fit perfectly with the recipient's wants or needs.1837,Washington Irving,The Adventures of Captain Bonneville:Having now, as he thought, balanced this little account of friendship, the captain was about to shift his saddle to this noblegift-horsewhen the affectionate patriarch plucked him by the sleeve, and introduced to him a whimpering, whining, leathern-skinned old squaw, that might have passed for an Egyptian mummy, without drying. "This," said he, "is my wife; she is a good wife--I love her very much.--She loves the horse--she loves him a great deal--she will cry very much at losing him.--I do not know how I shall comfort her--and that makes my heart very sore."1996,Daniel Clement Dennett,Darwin's dangerous idea: evolution and the meanings of life, page352:To human beings, on the other hand, each meme vehicle is a potential friend or foe, bearing a gift that will enhance our powers or agift horsethat will distract us, burden our memories, derange our judgment.1990Fall, Daniel Tyree McElrath, “Abusing the Privilege”, inPloughshares, volume16, number2/3, page154:"Don't worry. You can keep them. You don't have to pay for them." / Well, agift horseand all that. I took the sneakers.2000, Michelle Spring,Running for Shelter, page164:The woman on the telephone in the science-faculty office found me an address for Timothy Butler in no time at all. Full marks for information retrieval. Zero for security. If I had been consulted, I would have insisted that callers produce something more compelling than a vague interest in locating a student before his address could be handed over. Still, what it is they say about agift horse?2009, John Hart,The last child:You know what they say about agift horse, man. This is free help. Don't take it for granted.

Examples:

EN: Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Miss Miles.
ES: A caballo regalado no se le mira el diente.
EN: But on a gift horse...
ES: Pero a caballo regalado...
EN: I never look a gift horse in the mouth.
ES: A caballo regalado no le mires el diente.
EN: When you go driving after this, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
ES: Cuando vaya a conducir después de esto, no le mires los dientes a un caballo regalado.
EN: I can't look a gift horse in the mouth.
ES: "Salta quien puede", dijo el sapo.
EN: Always felt I was looking at a gift horse in the mouth.
ES: A caballo regalado no se le miran los dientes.
EN: Don't ask a gift horse too many questions.
ES: - No te preocupes.
EN: Well, his paper must think it's worth it so why look a gift horse in the mouth?
ES: Bien, su periódico pensará que vale la pena. A caballo regalado no mires la boca.
EN: I'm never one to shut the door after the horse has bolted. But I'm sometimes liable to look a gift horse in the mouth.
ES: Nunca detengo a un caballo desbocado pero sé mirarle los dientes a un caballo regalado.
EN: Never look a gift horse in the mouth. You?
ES: A caballo regalado no se le miran los dientes. ¿Y Ud.?
EN: Confucius say, "Never look gift horse in mouth."
ES: Confucio decía, "a caballo regalado, no le mires el diente."
EN: Well, we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
ES: Ví un caballo de regalo en la guantera. ¿Lo buscais?
EN: Never look a gift horse in the mouth, that's what I always say.
ES: A caballo regalado, no le mires el diente, eso digo yo siempre.
EN: Experience has taught me to look carefully at a gift horse.
ES: La experiencia me ha enseñado a mirar el diente al caballo regalado.
EN: What? That we're looking a gift horse in the mouth.
ES: 6 horas después, ese suelo tenía más vitaminas que una cadena de farmacias.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).