Word.ws English Dictionary

cast one's bread upon the waters

cast one's bread upon the waters verb: to perform a kind deed or favor without the motivation of any immediate reward or benefit to oneself, though with the possibility of eventual future return.

Verb

cast one's bread upon the waters (third-person singular simple present casts one's bread upon the waters, present participle casting one's bread upon the waters, simple past and past participle cast one's bread upon the waters)

  1. (idiomatic) To perform a kind deed or favor without the motivation of any immediate reward or benefit to oneself, though with the possibility of eventual future return.
    • “… We shall always feel a melancholy pride, Mr. Grimsby and myself, in knowing that we recognised his quality, before there was any likelihood of financial remuneration. A succès d’estime, that was all, until this very grievous occurrence. But when the work is good, it is not our habit to boggle...1930, Dorothy Sayers, Strong Poison

Forms of cast one's bread upon the waters

third-person singular presentcasts one's bread upon the waters
present participlecasting one's bread upon the waters
past participlecast one's bread upon the waters
pastcast one's bread upon the waters

Origin of cast one's bread upon the waters

From the Biblical verse “cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” (Ecclesiastes 11:1)

Questions about cast one's bread upon the waters

What does cast one's bread upon the waters mean?
Cast one's bread upon the waters means to perform a kind deed or favor without the motivation of any immediate reward or benefit to oneself, though with the possibility of eventual future return.
What part of speech is cast one's bread upon the waters?
Cast one's bread upon the waters is a verb.
What is the past tense of cast one's bread upon the waters?
The past tense of cast one's bread upon the waters is cast one's bread upon the waters.

Words near cast one's bread upon the waters in the dictionary

  1. cast not a clout till May be out
  2. cast of thousands
  3. cast off
  4. cast oil on troubled waters
  5. cast on
  6. cast one's bread upon the waters
  7. cast one's lot with
  8. cast one's mind back
  9. cast one's net far and wide
  10. cast one's net wide
  11. cast one's net wider

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cast one's bread upon the waters (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.

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