Etymology

throw the baby out with the bathwater

Today it means: To discard, inadvertently or through overzealousness, something valuable or essential ("the baby") in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted or undesirable ("the bathwater"). Full definition →

German das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten
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The story

  1. German · calque ofdas Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten
  2. English todaythrow the baby out with the bathwater

Calque of German das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten, a proverb first recorded by Thomas Murner in his satire Narrenbeschwörung (1512). First appeared in English when Thomas Carlyle translated it in an essay on slavery (1849).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.