A short horse is soon curried
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs:
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A short horse is soon curried
A slight task is soon completed. Curried here means ‘groomed with a curry-comb’.
Short hors is son j-curryed.
[c 1350 Douce MS 52 no. 17]
A shorte hors is son curried.
[a 1530 R. Hill Commonplace Book (EETS) 128]
A short Horse is soon curried.
[1732 T. Fuller Gnomologia no. 395]
A short tale is soon told—and a short horse soon curried.
[1820 Scott Abbot I. xi.]
A short horse is soon curried. This is our tightest squeeze yet,‥but it's only a beginning.
[1939 L. I. Wilder By Shores of Silver Lake xxx.]
That's a short horse and soon curried. Let's go see this Captain Murphy and put an end to it.
[1948 F. P. Keyes Dinner at Antoine's xx.]
Related to: efficiency and inefficiency; work
Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.
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Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. Copyright © 1982, 1992, 1998, 2003, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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