"Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" Idiom Meaning, Origin & History | Superduper English Idioms
Channel: Superduper English Idioms
Date: 2020-06-15

0:00 - How to Say, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
0:54 - Meaning of “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
2:48 - Origin of “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
3:26 - A Surprising Fact About "Rome wasn't built in a day."
4:18 - Examples of “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
4:59 - Conclusion

“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

You’ll often hear people say, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” when they are trying to tell someone that things take time.

Indeed, no city was ever built in a day and not even a house can be built in a day.

Well, the straw house from The Three Little Pigs was built in a day, and we all know how that ended!

Strong and important things require you to spend time on them and this is what the idiom is all about.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” not only means that things take time, it also means that things require effort.

The building of something as important as a city happens over the course of many years…

… and happens with the effort of thousands and thousands of people.

In your own life, important things take time and effort, too.

If you’ve ever tried to learn a new language, you’ll understand right away how much time and effort it takes.

If you’ve ever tried gardening, you’ll know how much patience is involved.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” is related to another idiom, “all things come to those who wait.”

“All things come to those who wait,” is self-explanatory and supposedly originates in a poem by English poet, Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie, 1843-1905.

Many people may be more familiar with, “good things come to those who wait,” which was actually the tagline for an American ketchup brand during the 1980s.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” is often attributed to one of two English writers: Richard Taverner, circa 1539; or John Heywood, circa 1546.

However, these writers simply made the idiom popular. The earliest reference to it comes from a 12th-century cleric in the court of Phillipe of Alsace, present-day Belgium.

There is another part to this idiom that most people don’t know about, or was perhaps added on later: “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.”

This additional piece to the idiom reinforces the fact that important things take not only time and patience, but also constant effort.

Whether you are learning a new skill, improving yourself or literally building something - you need a combination of continuous effort and enough time.

Suppose you are trying to perfect your painting skills and get frustrated, one of your parents might say to you, “Take a break and come back to it later, dear. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Maybe your partner is writing a new computer program but keeps running into the same bug. You might say, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.”

Any time that someone encounters difficulty or setbacks in a pursuit, you can offer them encouragement by reminding them that, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

You can encourage others, and yourself, not to give up and to have patience with the idiom, “Rome was not built in a day.”

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