a leopard cannot change its spots
proverbEtymology Ultimately from Jeremiah 13:23.
1
One cannot change one's own nature.
- King.[…]Lyons make Leopards tame. / Mo[wbray]. Yea, but not change his ſpots:1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 24, column 2:
- Can the Ethiopian change his ſkinne? or the leopard his ſpots?1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 13:23, column 1:
2 more examples
- End now all unkindness. Let us put the Jew to ransom, since the leopard will not change his spots, and a Jew he will continue to be.1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter II, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 60:
- The leopard cannot change his spots, old boy.1918, Johnston McCulley, Thubway Tham's Inthane Moment:
- Synonyms
- the wolf may lose his teeth but never his nature, the fox may grow grey but never good, you can take the person out of the place, but you can't take the place out of the person
- Related terms
- what's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh