English · Proverb Candidate

cut your coat according to your cloth

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Also seen as: cut one's coat according to one's cloth

Sense 1

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Spend only what you can afford

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Chi tiêu chỉ nên bằng với khả năng mình có

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: tailor a coat to fit available fabric

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

He talks a lot of tommy rot about not making ends meet, but what I say is you've got to cut your coat according to your cloth.

The school won't charge you this time, but you must cut your coat according to your cloth.’

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed on Wikipedia “List of proverbial phrases” (CC BY-SA 4.0, 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.

Sense 2

Meaning · English

Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review.

Topics: Clothes

Common questions

What does “cut your coat according to your cloth” mean?

Spend only what you can afford Literally: tailor a coat to fit available fabric

Is “cut your coat according to your cloth” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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