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.
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.