Meaning
A proverb advising you to examine the risks and likely consequences of an action before committing to it, especially where a decision cannot easily be undone. Frequently quoted when counselling someone against a hasty or impulsive choice. Proverbial and mildly didactic; often cited alongside its apparent opposite, 'he who hesitates is lost'. Regional use: General English.
Origin
First recorded in English in John Heywood's 1546 collection of proverbs, where it is applied with a wink to rash marriage: 'in wedding and all things to looke ere ye leaped'. A rhymed Middle English forerunner, 'First loke and aftirward lepe', is reported from a manuscript of about 1350 held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The saying is routinely linked to Aesop's fable 'The Fox and the Goat', whose moral warns against jumping into a well before checking the way out; the fable does not contain the English wording, so that link is a shared moral rather than a documented descent, and Heywood's 1546 dialogue remains the standard first citation.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- first look and then leap
- look before leaping
- look before ye leap
- look ere you leap
Usage Examples
- Before you hand over the deposit, look before you leap and check the agent's references properly.
- She has always looked before she leapt, researching every investment for months before committing a penny.
- 'Look before you leap,' my supervisor warned, as I drafted a resignation letter on a bad day.