never the twain shall meet

English

Etymology

From the poem The Ballad of East and West.[1]

Phrase

never the twain shall meet

  1. (idiomatic) Used to emphasize that two subjects are so different that they cannot coexist or agree with each other.

See also

References
  1. Rudyard Kipling (1889) “The Ballad of East and West”, in Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, published 1919: “Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, […]”
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.