don't look a gift horse in the mouth

• never look a gift horse in the mouth

Calque from Latin expressions such as equi dentes inspicere donati (“to inspect the teeth of a provided horse”) in St. Jerome's c. 400 Preface to the Commentaries of the Letter to the Ephesians (Commentariorum in Epistolam ad Ephesios Libri Tres), which designates it as a "common proverb" (vulgare proverbium). The ultimate referrent is inspection of horses' teeth as a way of ascertaining their age and value.

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don't look a gift horse in the mouth

1. One should not unappreciatively question or inspect a gift too closely.
   • 1546, John Heywood, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth.

   • 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras:

     He ne’er consider'd it, as loth
     To look a Gift-horse in the mouth.

• beggars can't be choosers, something is better than nothing, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; see also Thesaurus:satisfactory

• long in the tooth
• straight from the horse's mouth

• Trojan horse

• Gregory Y. Titelman, Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, 1996, →ISBN, p. 69.