teach a man to fish
TEECH uh MAN too FISH
tiːtʃ ə mæn tə fɪʃListen
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Syllable breakdown
Dictionary meaning
provide someone with the knowledge and skills to help themselves independently rather than simply supplying them with immediate assistance; the full proverb is give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime; though often attributed to Confucius or Lao Tzu, its earliest traceable English form is from Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie in 1885; widely used in development economics, education policy, and social work to argue for capacity-building over dependency-creating charity
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