mind your own beeswax
English
Alternative forms
- none of your beeswax
- none of your bee’s wax
- none of your bees’ wax
Etymology
Alteration of mind your own business, to soften the force of the retort.[1]
Phrase
mind your own beeswax
- See mind your own business.
- 1995: Sue Grafton, L Is for Lawless, p155
- “This has nothing to do with you, Kinsey, so mind your own beeswax.”
- 1969: Philip Barry, The Philadelphia Story: A Comedy in Three Acts, p74
- TRACY. (Rises) Mind your own beeswax, old Nosey Parker.
- 1950: Beverly Cleary, Henry Huggins, p128
- “Say, how did he get all pink?”
- “Aw, mind your own beeswax,” said Henry.
- 1995: Sue Grafton, L Is for Lawless, p155
References
- Palmatier, Robert Allen (1995) Speaking of Animals: A Dictionary of Animal Metaphors, Greenwood Press, →ISBN, pages p.23