Meaning & Analysis
To look for and point out a fault—often a small tear or ‘hole’—in someone’s figurative ‘coat,’ i.e., their conduct, case, or reputation, so as to discredit them.
Insights
Fault-finding
Frames criticism as nitpicking: the critic hunts for tiny defects to parade as proofs of general unworthiness, regardless of overall soundness.
Legalistic Evasion
Suggests seeking technicalities—‘holes’—to attack or void a claim; the target’s case is pierced not by substance but by procedural snags.
Status Vulnerability
A threadbare ‘coat’ signals exposed status; the proverb captures how poverty or past wear makes one an easier mark for public shaming.
Weaponized Scrutiny
Inspection becomes aggression: the gaze is sharpened into a tool for social dominance, turning minor blemishes into grounds for affront.
Clothing as Character
Early modern culture read garments as moral ledgers—wear, stains, and seams as visible tokens of credit and care. Finding a ‘hole’ becomes a way to read (and rewrite) a person’s story in hostile ink.
From Hole to Loophole
The physical tear anticipates the juridical ‘loophole’: narrow apertures through which accusers or defendants slip advantage, making procedure eclipse justice.
Shakespearean Currency
Stage dialogue uses the phrase to threaten frank reproof: ‘If I find a hole in his coat I will tell him my mind,’ showing how the idiom licenses outspoken censure within familiar social scripts.
Psychology of Negativity
Humans overweight flaws (negativity bias) and seek confirming evidence (motivated reasoning); ‘hole-picking’ flatters the critic’s acumen while degrading the other’s standing.
Class and Exposure
‘When a man’s coat is threadbare, it’s an easy thing to pick a hole’—the poor are more legibly vulnerable; the proverb thus doubles as a critique of how scarcity invites disproportionate scrutiny.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
A literal tear in clothing stands for a lapse in argument, ethics, or status, converting visual defect into moral and legal weakness.
Synecdoche
The ‘coat’ represents public persona; damaging a small part tarnishes the whole, mirroring how a single fault can stain reputation.
Paronomasia
The play between ‘hole’ and later ‘loophole’ shows the idiom’s elasticity, sliding from cloth to code and sharpening the sense of technical caviling.
Allusive Commonplace
Echoes across sermons, plays, and manuals give the phrase a communal authority; its familiarity lends sting without need for elaboration.
Colloquial Bite
Plain, workaday diction makes the accusation quick and portable—fit for gossip, courtroom aside, or stage retort.
Transcription
Quotations
Here is a device to find a hole in the coat of some of you Puritans.
If he findes a hole in any mans coate that is of wealth, then he hath his peremptory scitation ready.
For perchance there might likewise be a hole (as they saie) found in your owne cote.
Nay, now Ione, I spy a hole in your coat.
Look your own heads stand fast; for if the law Do find a hole in your coats, beg no mercy.
New married, thats all the hole you can find in her coate.
It's easie to pick a hole in another mans coat, if he be disposed.
Nor is it hard for Satan to pick some hole in the saint's coat, when he walks most circumspectly.
My wife ... told me she was afraid that Mr. Downing may have a mind to pick some hole in my coat.
To find in any one, any thing whereby to fasten an affront on him, to pick a hole in ones coat.
He will pick a Hole in your Coat (i.e. he will find fault with ye).
When a Man's Coat is Thread-bare, its an easie Thing to pick a Hole in it.
Shakespeare Citations
If I find a hole in his coat I will tell him my mind.
There's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford.
Annotations
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.