Word.ws English Dictionary

casting one's bread upon the waters

casting one's bread upon the waters is the present participle of cast one's bread upon the waters.

Meaning of cast one's bread upon the waters

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

Questions about casting one's bread upon the waters

What is casting one's bread upon the waters the present participle of?
Casting one's bread upon the waters is the present participle of cast one's bread upon the waters.

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

  1. casting net
  2. casting nets
  3. casting off
  4. casting oil on troubled waters
  5. casting on
  6. casting one's bread upon the waters
  7. casting one's mind back
  8. casting one's net far and wide
  9. casting one's net wide
  10. casting one's net wider
  11. casting one's vote

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: casting one's bread upon the waters (page history and authors); 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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