murder will out

English

Etymology

The phrase murder will out, literally "murder will become public", appears as far back as Geoffrey Chaucer's works. The phrase is often linked to the superstition that a murderer's presence near the corpse will be indicated by fresh bleeding.

Proverb

murder will out

1. a murderer will always be discovered.
2. (idiomatic) secrets or hidden crimes will eventually be exposed or discovered; nothing that is secret can remain a secret forever.

Translations

proverb

• Finnish: ennen pitkää totuus paljastuu (fi)

• Russian: шила в мешке не утаишь (ru) (šíla v mešké ne utaíšʹ) (you can't hide an awl in a sack)

References

• “murder will out” in The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
• “murder” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, v1.0.1, Lexico Publishing Group, 2006.
• "English Legal Proverbs", Donald F. Bond, PMLA, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Dec., 1936), pp. 927.