"those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay" meaning in English

See those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Etymology: Apparently originated in a song. Head templates: {{head|en|proverb|head=}} those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay, {{en-proverb}} those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay
  1. (archaic) One should take immediate advantage of an opportunity that may not be available later. Tags: archaic
    Sense id: en-those_who_will_not_when_they_may,_when_they_will_they_shall_have_nay-en-proverb-3zqhOXxN Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English proverbs

Download JSON data for those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay meaning in English (1.1kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Apparently originated in a song.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One should take immediate advantage of an opportunity that may not be available later."
      ],
      "id": "en-those_who_will_not_when_they_may,_when_they_will_they_shall_have_nay-en-proverb-3zqhOXxN",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(archaic) One should take immediate advantage of an opportunity that may not be available later."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "archaic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "Apparently originated in a song.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs",
        "English terms with archaic senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One should take immediate advantage of an opportunity that may not be available later."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(archaic) One should take immediate advantage of an opportunity that may not be available later."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "archaic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "those who will not when they may, when they will they shall have nay"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.