Word.ws English Dictionary

make a silk purse of a sow's ear

make a silk purse of a sow's ear verb: to produce something refined, admirable, or valuable from something which is unrefined, unpleasant, or of little or no value.

Verb

make a silk purse of a sow's ear (third-person singular simple present makes a silk purse of a sow's ear, present participle making a silk purse of a sow's ear, simple past and past participle made a silk purse of a sow's ear)

  1. (idiomatic) To produce something refined, admirable, or valuable from something which is unrefined, unpleasant, or of little or no value.
    • "He always was an unmannerly cub," said Master Headley, as he read the letter. "Well, I've done my best to make a silk purse of a sow's ear!"1884, Charlotte M. Yonge, chapter 22, in The Armourer's Prentices
    • PR people can make a silk purse of a sow's ear.1997 May 23, Joanna Biddolph, “Mandelson has become PR’s new role model”, in PRWeek, UK, retrieved 16 Dec 2009

Forms of make a silk purse of a sow's ear

third-person singular presentmakes a silk purse of a sow's ear
present participlemaking a silk purse of a sow's ear
past participlemade a silk purse of a sow's ear
pastmade a silk purse of a sow's ear

Origin of make a silk purse of a sow's ear

Coined by Stephen Gosson in 1579 in the book The Ephemerides of Phialo: Deuided Into Three Bookes p62v

Questions about make a silk purse of a sow's ear

What does make a silk purse of a sow's ear mean?
Make a silk purse of a sow's ear means to produce something refined, admirable, or valuable from something which is unrefined, unpleasant, or of little or no value.
What part of speech is make a silk purse of a sow's ear?
Make a silk purse of a sow's ear is a verb.
What is the past tense of make a silk purse of a sow's ear?
The past tense of make a silk purse of a sow's ear is made a silk purse of a sow's ear.

Words near make a silk purse of a sow's ear in the dictionary

  1. make a public spectacle of oneself
  2. make a rabbit bite a bulldog
  3. make a run for it
  4. make a scene
  5. make a show of oneself
  6. make a silk purse of a sow's ear
  7. make a spectacle of oneself
  8. make a splash
  9. make a stand
  10. make a statement
  11. make a stick for one's own back

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make a silk purse of a sow's ear (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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