what goes around comes around
Meaning
Usage frequency
Common · 99 corpus occurrences
Recorded for “What goes around comes around” in COCA, searched on 2016-04-05.
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 cheated clients for years, but what goes around comes around.”
When to use it
Often comments on someone receiving the same treatment they previously gave others, especially after unfair behavior.
The image behind the saying
A boomerang is pictured completing a circle back to the thrower; the universe's payback follows the same loop.