Meaning
To put money or other resources aside for a future time of need, such as job loss, illness or emergency repairs. It frames saving as prudent insurance against misfortune rather than investing for a specific goal, and is now stock vocabulary in personal finance and public budgeting. Neutral, mildly proverbial register; carries a tone of old-fashioned prudence rather than financial ambition. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The earliest known English record is the anonymous play The Bugbears, performed around 1561, an adaptation of Antonio Francesco Grazzini's Italian comedy La Spiritata; its line 'Wold he haue me kepe nothing against a raynye day?' is the first appearance of the image in English, so the idea may be older still in Italian, though that rests on the translation itself. Merriam-Webster dates the figurative noun rainy day, defined as 'a period of want or need', to circa 1580. The often-cited window of the 1550s to 1580s for the first record is therefore accurate. The metaphor's logic, that rain stops outdoor work and income while expenses continue, is a reasonable inference from agrarian life but is offered by reference sources as explanation rather than documented as origin.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- keep something for a rainy day
- put something aside for a rainy day
- rainy-day fund
- saving for a rainy day
Usage Examples
- Even on a tight graduate stipend, she saved fifty euros a month for a rainy day.
- The council had put equipment reserves aside for a rainy day, so the flood damage did not require new borrowing.
- His grandmother's rule was simple: a third of every paycheck goes to a rainy-day fund before anything else is spent.