when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras

English dictionary entry

Meanings

proverb

When diagnosing a patient's symptoms, common ailments should be considered as more probable than rare ones.

Word forms

when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras

Etymology

Coined by American medical researcher Theodore Woodward.

Synonyms

horses, not zebras

Related words

Occam's razor

← when two Sundays meet
← when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me
← when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging
← when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras
← when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras

when you mess with the bull, you get the horns →
when you're hot, you're hot →
when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp →
when'd →
when'll →

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.

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