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Pot calling the kettle black



This phrase originates in Cervantes' Don Quixote, or at least in Thomas Shelton's 1620 translation - Cervantes Saavedra's History of Don Quixote:

"You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, 'Avant, black-browes'." (source)

The figurative meaning is that a criticism a person makes of another could equally well apply to themselves.






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