Word.ws English Dictionary

casts one's bread upon the waters

casts one's bread upon the waters is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 casts one's bread upon the waters

What is casts one's bread upon the waters the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Casts one's bread upon the waters is the third-person singular simple present indicative of cast one's bread upon the waters.

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

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: casts 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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