"A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss" Idiom Meaning, Origin & History | Superduper English Idioms
Channel: Superduper English Idioms
Date: 2020-06-02

0:00 - How to Say, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
0:29 - Meaning of “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
1:20 - Origin of “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
2:20 - Ideas About “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
3:17 - Conclusion

“A rolling stone gathers no moss.”

You’ve probably heard someone from the older generation say this to someone from the younger generation.

Perhaps that person was you and your parents were saying this because they wanted you to settle down!

The idiom is pretty self-explanatory, but imagine a stone that was constantly rolling down a hill or being pushed in a river by the water. Moss or algae would have no chance to grow on it at all.

On the other hand, a stone which was always in one place and never moved, would eventually grow moss upon its surface. The moss would get thicker and thicker over time, too.

This idiom could be taken as good or bad, however; depending on whether or not you view moss as something you want or something to avoid.

“A rolling stone gathers no moss,” is attributed to Publilius Syrus, a writer who was originally a slave in Roman Italy.

Syrus used the idiom to describe people who are always moving, without putting roots down anywhere, avoiding responsibilities and care.

Traditionally, avoiding responsibility was seen as a negative thing, which is why elders can often be heard saying this to young people.

In more recent times, the writer John Heywood and the philosopher, Erasmus are both sometimes credited with the idiom and are understood to have meant that gathering moss was desirable.

In other words, a frequently replanted tree yields little fruit.

Nowadays, however, “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” has commonly come to mean that a person should keep active and moving in order to avoid stagnation.

In other words, you must keep moving in order to avoid getting rusty.

With unprecedented economic and cultural change in the world, it does seem that one should strive to be a “rolling stone” that gathers no moss.

Even if you choose to be a stone that gathers moss, the issue of climate change might force you to become a rolling stone.

So… are you a stone that gathers no moss or are you a stone that does?

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