Meaning & Analysis
Someone (typically a woman in older usages) may be easily gained or pleased with a small gift such as an apple or egg, and just as easily offended or lost over something even smaller or more trivial, like a nut or its shell.
Insights
Fickleness of Affection
The proverb points to the emotional instability or unpredictability of some relationships—where affection is won with minor kindness but lost through equally insignificant slights.
Fragility of Bonds
It warns of how fragile and tenuous human attachments can be, especially when they are based on superficial gestures or momentary whims.
Trivial Gains and Losses
It satirizes the disproportion between the effort or value of what is given and what is lost, underscoring the irrational nature of certain emotional or social exchanges.
Gendered Stereotypes
Historically, the proverb reflected a stereotypical (and often misogynistic) view of women as emotionally mercurial or overly responsive to small tokens—reinforcing cultural narratives of female inconstancy in early modern literature.
Humor in Inconsistency
Writers like Gascoigne and Dallington used this trope with comic effect, recognizing in the phrase a satirical commentary on all fickle human behavior—not just romantic, but social, political, and courtly.
Psychological Volatility
The proverb captures a psychological truth: that people often form attachments or resentments based not on grand logic, but on small cues, misread intentions, or emotional impulses—making human behavior seem unpredictable and volatile.
Symbolic Economy of Gift Exchange
The proverb reflects older economies of courtship and social negotiation where small gifts—food, tokens—held disproportionate symbolic meaning, emphasizing the performative and precarious nature of social bonding.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
The juxtaposition of being 'won' and 'lost' through parallel but opposing small tokens heightens the proverb’s irony and expressive symmetry.
Symbolism
The apple, egg, and nut symbolize minor, everyday things, which here stand in for emotional triggers—elevating ordinary objects into carriers of deeper meaning.
Irony
There is strong ironic tension between the insignificance of the objects and the gravity of the relationship dynamics they affect, making the proverb both humorous and biting.
Transcription
Quotations
She is lost with an appull, and woon with a nut.
Nor woman true but even as stories tell, Wonne with an egge, and lost againe with shell.
A childish humour, to bee wonne with as little as an Apple, and lost with lesse then a Nut.
Wonne with an egge, and lost with the shell.
Marian, thinking she had lost her lover with a nut, sent him a present of apples to winne him againe.
Won with the egge and lost with the shell.
He may be gott by an Apple, and lost by a Nutt.
Cross References
- See T. 706, p. 336.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.