why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.98 in modern English
88
Scrabble Score
39
Letters
5
Syllables
18
Unique Chars
Meaning
proverb
Do not expect somebody to make a costly commitment if it will give them nothing they do not already have; used especially as a warning against having sexual intercourse before marriage (or conversely, as encouragement against getting married).
Example Sentences
- "The whole idea of why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free relates to offering only a very brief sample of your music online. I have intellectual property, and I treat that intellectual property very seriously as an artist."
- "In the past, women who wanted to move in with a boyfriend would get a strict talking-to about a common male mentality: “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”"
- "I can get plenty of dames, so why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free...ya know what I mean?"