English · Idiom Candidate

sell one's birthright for a mess of pottage

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To sacrifice something valuable for something trivial or temporary

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Hy sinh điều gì đó quý giá vì điều tầm thường hoặc tạm thời

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: sell one's birthright for a dish of cooked vegetables

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

He sold his share of the company for a mess of pottage, regretting it later

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “sell one's birthright for a mess of pottage” mean?

To sacrifice something valuable for something trivial or temporary Literally: sell one's birthright for a dish of cooked vegetables

Is “sell one's birthright for a mess of pottage” formal or informal?

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