Word.ws English Dictionary

you can't be half pregnant

you can't be half pregnant proverb: said of an either-or situation; there are only two available choices.

Proverb

you can't be half pregnant

  1. (idiomatic) Said of an either-or situation; there are only two available choices.
    • Alex, you can't be half pregnant. If you keep doing other work that falls outside of your logo design process, you'll send mixed messages to all of your stakeholders.2011, John Warrillow, Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, Penguin, →ISBN, page 47

Origin of you can't be half pregnant

From the notion that someone is either pregnant or not.

Questions about you can't be half pregnant

What does you can't be half pregnant mean?
You can't be half pregnant means said of an either-or situation; there are only two available choices.
What part of speech is you can't be half pregnant?
You can't be half pregnant is a proverb.

Words near you can't be half pregnant in the dictionary

  1. you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink
  2. you can lead horses to water, but you can't make them drink
  3. you can say that again
  4. you can take the monkey out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the monkey
  5. you can talk
  6. you can't be half pregnant
  7. you can't break a stick in a bundle
  8. you can't break a twig in a bundle
  9. you can't break sticks in a bundle
  10. you can't catch old birds with chaff
  11. you can't fight City Hall

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: you can't be half pregnant (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-you can't be half pregnant.ogg.

Cite this entry: “you can't be half pregnant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/you_can%27t_be_half_pregnant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.