all your swans are geese
Preserved but no longer current.
All your fine Eromises or expectations have proved illacious. "Hope told a flattering tale." The converse, AH your geese are swans, means all your children are paragons, and whatever you do is in your own eyes superlative work.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “all your swans are geese” mean?
All your fine Eromises or expectations have proved illacious. "Hope told a flattering tale." The converse, AH your geese are swans, means all your children are paragons, and whatever you do is in your own eyes superlative work.
Is “all your swans are geese” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.