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Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes

1 Cultural  

  1. Don't react to a situation too early. This saying comes from an order allegedly given by American officer William Prescott at the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War.

Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes 2 Cultural  

  1. A famous command attributed to William Prescott, an American officer, at the Battle of Bunker Hill in the Revolutionary War. Prescott may have said “color” rather than “whites.”

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Prescott's command has become a proverb, meaning “Don't act before you have some chance of success.”

Example Sentences

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Stories about the episode are believed to have popularised the famous order "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes".

From The Guardian • Mar. 19, 2013

Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes.

From Time Magazine Archive

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.