Word.ws English Dictionary

camel's nose

camel's nose noun: a situation where the permitting of some small act will lead to a larger undesirable act or circumstance.

Noun

camel's nose (plural camels' noses)

  1. (idiomatic) A situation where the permitting of some small act will lead to a larger undesirable act or circumstance.

Forms of camel's nose

pluralcamels' noses

Origin of camel's nose

The root phrase is usually claimed to be a saying of Arabs or Middle Eastern cultures, roughly as follows: : Do not allow a camel to put his nose under the edge of your tent, for soon you will have a camel in your tent.

Questions about camel's nose

What does camel's nose mean?
Camel's nose means a situation where the permitting of some small act will lead to a larger undesirable act or circumstance.
What part of speech is camel's nose?
Camel's nose is a noun.
What is the plural of camel's nose?
The plural of camel's nose is camels' noses.

Words near camel's nose in the dictionary

  1. camel through the eye of a needle
  2. camel toe
  3. camel toes
  4. camel's hair
  5. camel's hairs
  6. camel's nose
  7. camel-cased
  8. camel-hair
  9. camel-hair brush
  10. camel-hair brushes
  11. camel-hairs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: camel's nose (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-camel's nose.ogg.

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