English in everyday life
Proverbs
Explore English sayings from most to least frequent in a published American English corpus. Alternate forms are collected together.
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.
Expressions containing get, including its inflections. Clear word filter
72 entries
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
Get while the getting is good
If you play with fire you're going to get burnt
Prepare to meet your Maker
Matching variant: Get ready to meet your Maker
Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you
What gets tested gets taught
You'll get pie in the sky when you die
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
A closed mouth does not get fed
A fish wouldn't get caught if it kept its mouth shut
Ask a stupid question, you'll get a stupid answer
C's get degrees
Don't get high on your own supply
Don't get mad, get ahead
Don't take life too seriously; you'll never get out of it alive
Get the money, honestly if you can
Happy people don't get sick
If you don't know where you are going, you might not get there
If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys
It's all fun and games till someone loses an eye
Matching variant: It's all fun and games till someone gets hurt
It's easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble
Life is tough; wear a helmet
Matching variant: Life's tough; get a helmet