Word.ws English Dictionary

cast the first stone

cast the first stone verb: to act self-righteously in accusing another person, believing oneself to be blameless.

Verb

cast the first stone (third-person singular simple present casts the first stone, present participle casting the first stone, simple past and past participle cast the first stone)

  1. (idiomatic) To act self-righteously in accusing another person, believing oneself to be blameless.
    • I knew I couldn't cast the first stone as I knew I had weaknesses. ... (But) as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law I have no choice but to move forward and say you cannot accept perjury in your highest officials.2007, March 10, Mr Gingrich, on the impeachment proceedings in 1999. Reported in The Guardian

Forms of cast the first stone

third-person singular presentcasts the first stone
present participlecasting the first stone
past participlecast the first stone
pastcast the first stone

Origin of cast the first stone

From the Bible John 8:7, where Jesus tells the accusers of a woman of adultery that "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her". All accusers did not do so, and Jesus forgave the woman's sin.

Questions about cast the first stone

What does cast the first stone mean?
Cast the first stone means to act self-righteously in accusing another person, believing oneself to be blameless.
What part of speech is cast the first stone?
Cast the first stone is a verb.
What is the past tense of cast the first stone?
The past tense of cast the first stone is cast the first stone.

Words near cast the first stone in the dictionary

  1. cast snowballs
  2. cast someone's water
  3. cast steel
  4. cast steels
  5. cast stone
  6. cast the first stone
  7. cast up
  8. cast up one's accounts
  9. cast-in-place
  10. cast-iron
  11. cast-iron plant

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cast the first stone (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-cast the first stone.ogg.

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