cast the first stone
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To be the first to criticize or punish someone
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Là người đầu tiên chỉ trích hoặc trừng phạt ai đó
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: throw the first stone
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Let him who has never lifted the seam of a cricket ball cast the first stone.’
There is no point in arguing who cast the first stone or threw the first bomb, destroying a church hall or a GAA club.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “cast the first stone” mean?
To be the first to criticize or punish someone Literally: throw the first stone
Is “cast the first stone” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.