cry over spilt milk
To be upset over something that cannot be fixed, often something minor. Please calm down, you're just crying over spilt milk. We already submitted the report, so we can't fix it now. A: "Why is Hannah so upset?" B: "Oh, she's just crying over spilt milk. She just fell down and ripped her stockings—she'll be fine." We were pretty disappointed to have lost the championship game, but there's no use crying over spilt milk. We just have to train harder for next season!
don't cry over spilled milk
Don't be upset over something that cannot be fixed. Said especially of something trivial or minor. Oh, honey, you just ripped your stockings a little. You'll be fine—don't cry over spilled milk. Don't go crying over spilled milk. We already submitted the report, so we can't fix it now. I know you're disappointed to have lost the championship game, but don't cry over spilled milk. There's always next season!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
crying over spilled milk, it's no good/use
Don’t regret what’s done and can’t be helped. That milk once spilled cannot be recovered must have been observed from the first day milk was put into a container. “No weeping for shed milk” appears in two seventeenth-century proverb collections (James Howell, 1659; John Ray, 1678), and the idea is still so well known that the mere words “spilled milk” convey the entire cliché.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer