Meaning
Used to tell someone they must choose between two incompatible options and cannot keep the benefits of both. It typically reproaches a person who wants to hold on to one advantage while also gaining what only giving it up would bring, whether money, freedom, or commitments. Informal and usually teasing or reproachful; American usage keeps the final 'too', while British speakers often drop it. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The idea was recorded in English remarkably early. A letter of 14 March 1538 from Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, to Thomas Cromwell contains 'a man can not have his cake and eat his cake', a citation reported by the Oxford English Dictionary and summarised on Wikipedia. John Heywood's 1546 proverb collection gives the clauses the other way round - 'wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake' - and the poet John Davies of Hereford rhymed 'a man cannot eat his cake and haue it stil' in 1611. For most of its life the 'eat ... and have' order was the usual form, and many commentators find it the more logical sequence; Google Books frequency data summarised on Wikipedia show the now-familiar 'have ... and eat' order overtaking it only in the 1930s and 1940s. Writers continue to argue about whether either order is strictly logical, but in ordinary speech the idiom works identically either way.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- Eat your cake and have it too
- Have your cake and eat it too
- You can't eat your cake and have it too
- You can't have your cake and eat it
Usage Examples
- You want a steady salary but also the freedom to skip work whenever you like - sorry, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
- The club cannot keep its star players and sell them for record fees in the same window; sooner or later it has to admit you can't have your cake and eat it too.
- Critics accused the airline of wanting to have its cake and eat it too by charging for every checked bag while still promising a premium experience.