What's done is done

"What's done is done" is an idiom in English.

The expression uses the word "done" in the sense of "finished" or "settled", a usage which dates back to the first half of the 15th century.^[1]

Meaning

It usually means something along the line of: the consequence of a situation (which was once within your control), is now out of your control, that is, "there's no changing the past, so learn from it and move on."

Etymology

One of the first-recorded uses of this phrase was by the character Lady Macbeth in the tragedy play Macbeth (early 17th century), by the English playwright William Shakespeare, who said: "Things without all remedy Should be without regard: what's done, is done"^[2] and "Give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. – To bed, to bed, to bed!"^[3]

Shakespeare did not coin the phrase; it is actually a derivative of the early 14th-century French proverb: Mez quant ja est la chose fecte, ne peut pas bien estre desfecte, which is translated into English as "But when a thing is already done, it cannot be undone".^[4]

See also

• List of idioms in the English language

References