put the cart before the horse
Verb
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Verb
put the cart before the horse
- (idiomatic) To put things in the wrong order or with the wrong priorities; to put something inconsequential as more important than something more essential.
- 1898, Julian Hawthorne, The History of the United States, ch. 1,
- The hour had struck; and with it, as always, appeared the man. So it has ever been in the history of the world; though we, with characteristic vanity, uniformly put the cart before the horse, and declare that it is the man that brings the hour.
- 1957, "[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,825322,00.html Corruption of the Mind]," Time, 2 Dec.,
- To attempt to remove the armaments before removing these substantive conflicts of interest is to put the cart before the horse.
- 2005, David D. Kirkpatrick, "Timing of Hearings and Vote Stalls Confirmation Talks ↗," New York Times, 27 Jul. (retrieved 6 Nov. 2008),
- Mr. Schumer said that the idea of agreeing to a date for a vote before the committee had held hearings was "to put the cart before horse."
- 1898, Julian Hawthorne, The History of the United States, ch. 1,
- ass-backwards
- hysteron proteron
- tail wagging the dog
- French: mettre la charrue avant les bœufs
- German: den Karren vor das Pferd spannen, den Pflug vor die Ochsen spannen, den Ochsen hinter den Pflug spannen, das Pferd von hinten aufzäumen
- Italian: mettere il carro davanti ai buoi
- Portuguese: colocar o carro à frente dos bois
- Russian: ста́вить теле́гу впереди́ ло́шади
- Spanish: poner el carro delante de los bueyes, poner el carro delante del caballo
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003