Word.ws English Dictionary

the devil you know

the devil you know is the alternative form of better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

Meaning of better the devil you know than the devil you don't know

Proverb

better the devil you know than the devil you don't know

  1. Something bad and familiar is better than something bad and unknown.

Questions about the devil you know

What is the devil you know the alternative form of?
The devil you know is the alternative form of better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

Words near the devil you know in the dictionary

  1. the devil takes care of his own
  2. the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't know
  3. the devil to pay and no pitch hot or ready
  4. the devil we know is better than the devil we don't
  5. the devil we know is better than the devil we don't know
  6. the devil you know
  7. the devil you know is better than the devil you don't
  8. the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know
  9. the devil you say
  10. The Devils Wilderness
  11. the dickens

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the devil you know (page history and authors); better the devil you know than the devil you don't know (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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Cite this entry: “the devil you know.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/the_devil_you_know. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.