Meaning
Used to say that two options, explanations or parties are essentially the same, so that choosing between them, or dividing praise or blame between them, makes no real difference: six units and half a dozen units are the same quantity. Often shortened to 'six of one', and used either to shrug at a choice or to apportion fault equally in a dispute. Conversational and informal, usually delivered as a verdict of cheerful indifference or evenly split blame. Regional use: General English.
Origin
A piece of arithmetic turned into a proverb: half a dozen is six, so both halves of the expression amount to the same thing. Grammarist traces the first known print appearance to 1790, in a journal kept by the British naval officer Ralph Clark, and judges the phrase likely to have been in spoken use before that; the same source notes the wording has stayed stable for more than two centuries. Older English comparisons built on the same equivalence, such as 'six and two threes', and further variants keep appearing ('six in one hand, half a dozen in the other'). No individual coiner is known; it looks like a collective colloquial invention.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- six and two threes
- six in one hand, half a dozen in the other
- six of one, half a dozen of the other
- six to one, half a dozen to another
Usage Examples
- Whether we drive Friday night or set off at dawn on Saturday, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other once you count the traffic.
- They are still arguing about whose fault the delay was, but honestly it is six of one and half a dozen of the other.
- Window seat or aisle, at these prices it is six of one and half a dozen of the other.