Leopard Can’t Change Its Spots, a

Also:

A leopard doesn’t change its spots
You can’t change a leopard’s spots
A Tiger can’t change its stripes

Meaning of Idiom ‘A Leopard Can’t Change Its Spots’

A leopard can’t change its spots means that a person cannot change their inner character or nature, especially if it is bad. 1Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms]. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. ,2McCarthy, Michael. Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. Cambridge University Press, 2002

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Examples Of Use

“He keeps saying he is sorry and will never do it again but he keeps seeing other women. I guess a leopard can’t change its spots.”

“I don’t believe he has really gone legit. A leopard doesn’t change its spots.”

“There is no point trying to get him to stop. He’s going to keep drinking no matter what. You can’t change a leopard’s spots.”

Origin

This idiom and its variants arose from an ancient Greek proverb which appears in the Bible in Jeremiah 13:23:

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots.”

In English, it was first used in print in 1546. 3Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms]. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. 

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More Can’t Idioms

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More Spot/Spots Idioms

• X Marks the Spot
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