fool me once in English

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "proverb"
      },
      "expansion": "fool me once",
      "name": "en-head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "extra": "fool me twice, shame on me",
          "word": "fool me once"
        },
        {
          "extra": "fool me twice, shame on me",
          "word": "shame on you"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
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          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Ellipsis of fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
      ],
      "id": "en-fool_me_once-en-proverb-NQKh9DZW",
      "links": [
        [
          "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me",
          "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "ellipsis"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fool me once"
}

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

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "proverb"
      },
      "expansion": "fool me once",
      "name": "en-head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "extra": "fool me twice, shame on me",
          "word": "fool me once"
        },
        {
          "extra": "fool me twice, shame on me",
          "word": "shame on you"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English ellipses",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Ellipsis of fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me",
          "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "ellipsis"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fool me once"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (d1270d2 and 9905b1f). 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.

"fool me once" meaning in English

Proverb

Alternative forms