check yourself before you wreck yourself in English

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Etymology: Chosen for the rhyme. Cliche made popularized by the song "Check Yo Self" (1993) by hip hop artist Ice Cube. Older sources include Dion's Song "Two Ton Feather" (1966) with the lyric "Check yourself, don't wreck yourself." Head templates: {{en-head|phr}} check yourself before you wreck yourself

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{
  "etymology_text": "Chosen for the rhyme. Cliche made popularized by the song \"Check Yo Self\" (1993) by hip hop artist Ice Cube. Older sources include Dion's Song \"Two Ton Feather\" (1966) with the lyric \"Check yourself, don't wreck yourself.\"",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "phr"
      },
      "expansion": "check yourself before you wreck yourself",
      "name": "en-head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Consider the consequences of your actions before you end up in trouble."
      ],
      "id": "en-check_yourself_before_you_wreck_yourself-en-phrase-QvqIVryD",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) Consider the consequences of your actions before you end up in trouble."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "lang_code": "es",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "controlarse"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "lang_code": "es",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "considerar las consecuencias"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Ice Cube"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "check yourself before you wreck yourself"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "Chosen for the rhyme. Cliche made popularized by the song \"Check Yo Self\" (1993) by hip hop artist Ice Cube. Older sources include Dion's Song \"Two Ton Feather\" (1966) with the lyric \"Check yourself, don't wreck yourself.\"",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "phr"
      },
      "expansion": "check yourself before you wreck yourself",
      "name": "en-head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English rhyming phrases",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Spanish translations",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Consider the consequences of your actions before you end up in trouble."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) Consider the consequences of your actions before you end up in trouble."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Ice Cube"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "lang_code": "es",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "controlarse"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "lang_code": "es",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "considerar las consecuencias"
    }
  ],
  "word": "check yourself before you wreck yourself"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"check yourself before you wreck yourself" meaning in English

Phrase