it never rains but it pours

Idioms  

1. When something occurs it often does so to excess. For example, First Aunt Sue said she and Uncle Harry were coming for the weekend and then my sister and her children said they were coming too—it never rains but it pours. This expression may have come from either a book by Queen Anne's physician, John Arbuthnot, or an article by Jonathan Swift, both entitled It Cannot Rain But It Pours and both published in 1726.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

it never rains but it pours

Once these things get to coming they say it never rains but it pours.

From Dick the Bank Boy Or, A Missing Fortune by Frank V. Webster

"I thought when Web's place burned we'd had fire enough to last for one spell, but it never rains but it pours."

From Cap'n Eri by Joseph Crosby Lincoln

As the old saying goes, it never rains but it pours; gassing was not the only trouble I was destined to experience on that day.

From In the Flash Ranging Service Observations of an American Soldier During His Service With the A.E.F. in France by Edward Alva Trueblood

"They reckon it never rains but it pours."

From We of the Never-Never by Jeannie Gunn

Upon the principle that it never rains but it pours, trouble seemed just now to be rife, and Patty took upon herself more than her share.

From A Little World by George Manville Fenn