pot calling the kettle black
- 1A situation in which someone criticizes another person for a fault, or accuses them of one, that the accuser shares.
My sister calling me messy is the pot calling the kettle black; her room is a disaster.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black: the company fined for dumping waste is now accusing its rival of polluting the river.
Similarhypocrisy
Note
Cooking over an open fire explains the picture: cast-iron pots and kettles hung over the flames both turned black on the bottom, so the pot is accusing the kettle of its own fault. It is the explanation most often given. The phrase usually arrives as a verdict on someone's remark: it's a case of, or talk about, the pot calling the kettle black.
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Origin
There are two explanations, and some sources give only the first. In the first, the bottoms of cast-iron pots and kettles hung over a fire turn equally black, so the pot accuses the kettle of a fault it shares. In the second, less likely one, the sooty pot sees its own reflection in a clean, shiny kettle, so it accuses the kettle of a fault only the pot has.