English · Proverb Candidate

When the cat is away, the mice will play. (16th century) (Citatboken)

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

People behave badly when not supervised

Literally: mice play when cat is absent

Examples

When the teacher left the room, the students started chatting loudly

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

Sources & notes

Listed on English Wikiquote “English proverbs” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31). 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.

Topics: Cats Mice & rats

Common questions

What does “When the cat is away, the mice will play. (16th century) (Citatboken)” mean?

People behave badly when not supervised Literally: mice play when cat is absent

Is “When the cat is away, the mice will play. (16th century) (Citatboken)” formal or informal?

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

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