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"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."[edit]

There's a meme going around saying that the original and complete version of the idiom is "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

As is explained in this article, there's no support for this assertion.

There's documentation supporting "Blood is thicker than water" going back to 12th century.

There's documentation supporting "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" as early as October 1, 1994 by R. Richard Pustelniak citing no earlier sources.

Pustelniak's explanation of the idiom is mentioned in the "Other interpretations" section.

Let me suggest that Pustelniak's explanation remain within the "Other interpretations" section and not be represented as the original nor most commonly understood interpretation of the idiom.

Davidwbaker (talk) 00:16, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ok so what does the "water" refer to? The explanation in this article is incomplete. It focuses on the meaning of "blood", but ignores the reference to "water". The citing of the Arabian use of "milk" and "blood-brothers" would seem to support the interpretation that it is about stronger bonds formed by choice and not by kin. One can choose a "blood-brother" can one not? 86.191.34.107 (talk) 08:43, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I always understood water in this saying to mean anything not of the blood that would at face value be capable of diluting the blood, if blood was an ordinary substance.
But blood, which has always been seen as something inherintly out of ordinary, powerful, even magical.
Like there is something in the blood that can't be diluted by an ordinary fluid. So water here means any other ordinary relationship that is not by blood, like water represents any ordinary fluid.
So to answer your question, the focus is the meaning of blood, because water is just a generic thing in counter point to blood. Water stands for anything of the same kind that is not special 2804:389:C2C1:D605:124D:BA69:5CCA:7B4E (talk) 17:18, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite right[edit]

Is the phrase not blood of the covenant is thicker than that of waters of the womb? So really your chosen family is more important than your born family. 174.21.0.16 (talk) 17:21, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Das ist die wahre Bedeutung! Der derzeitige Wikipediaeintrag ist komplett faksch. 2003:DC:9F42:B9FA:8587:95BB:92A9:BC9F (talk) 05:30, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • falsch
2003:DC:9F42:B9FA:8587:95BB:92A9:BC9F (talk) 05:32, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is "Blood is thicker than milk" an Arabic saying?[edit]

The article says that "blood is thicker than milk" is an Arabic saying (and lots and lots of sources have picked it up, probably from this article). But is there any reason to think that the saying itself is Arabic? The passage from Trumbull reads like it's his own description of the treatment of "milk-brothers" and "blood-brothers." Mwphil (talk) 14:35, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Obscurity[edit]

I'd like to thank the diligence of researchers clarifying that the saying is even more illucid than I thought. I assumed the allusion to blood was reasonably transparent, and only its relation to water, and their divergent rheological properties, remained to be explicated.

Alas, neither element, in their context, has certain etymological bedrock. JohndanR (talk) 15:22, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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