when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras
when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras proverb: when diagnosing a patient's symptoms, common ailments should be considered as more probable than rare ones.
Proverb
when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras
- When diagnosing a patient's symptoms, common ailments should be considered as more probable than rare ones.
- Synonyms:
- horses, not zebras
Synonyms of when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras
Forms of when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras
| alternative form | when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras |
|---|---|
| alternative form | when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras |
Origin of when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras
Coined by American medical researcher Theodore Woodward.
Questions about when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras
- What does when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras mean?
- When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras means when diagnosing a patient's symptoms, common ailments should be considered as more probable than rare ones.
- What part of speech is when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras?
- When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras is a proverb.
Words near when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras in the dictionary
- when two Sundays meet
- when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me
- when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging
- when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras
- when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
- when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras
- when you mess with the bull, you get the horns
- when you're hot, you're hot
- when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp
- when'd
- when'll
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras (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: “when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/when_you_hear_hoofbeats%2C_think_of_horses%2C_not_zebras. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.