a leopard can't change its spots
Meaning
A person's basic character cannot fundamentally change.
Usage frequency
Less common · 4 corpus occurrences
Recorded for “A leopard doesn't change its spots” in COCA, searched on 2016-09-07.
About these frequency groups
Groups use full-form occurrence counts in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), recorded in 2016–2017. For a proverb with several forms, we use the highest individual count, since adding overlapping forms could count the same occurrence twice.
These are historical American English corpus counts, not estimates of how often everyone uses a saying today. A zero means no full-form match was recorded. The source’s separate familiarity ratings are retained in the data but do not determine this ordering.
We grouped variants, merged reviewed duplicate entries, and preserved existing editorial wording. The source includes historical and dated sayings; inclusion is not an endorsement.
In a conversation
“He promised to be more honest, but a leopard can't change its spots.”
When to use it
Used to express doubt that someone has truly changed; it can sound dismissive or cynical.
The image behind the saying
A leopard's spotted coat is permanent, like an ingrained nature.