to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel
- idiom
- Archaic
:
sacrificar algo pequeño para ganar algo grande
- The company offered a discount to new clients, hoping to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel.
Examples
-
Sometimes you have to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel in business negotiations.
-
Donating a small amount to the campaign was his way of throwing a sprat to catch a mackerel.
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Sometimes you need to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel.
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He decided to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel with his small investment.
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In order to gain more clients, the firm decided to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel by offering free trial services.
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To secure a lucrative contract, she chose to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel by giving a small discount to the client.
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He made a modest donation, considering it a way to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel for future contributions.
Synonyms
37
3.9
To give up something important to help other people or reach a long-term goal
1
5.8
To give up something valuable in exchange for something else, often as a loss
How Strategic
37
3.9
- Archaic
102
4.1
7
4.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
throw + a + sprat + to + catch + a + mackerel
The proverb's figurative meaning follows directly from the literal image: giving or throwing a small fish (sprat) to catch a larger one (mackerel) transparently maps onto sacrificing a small thing to gain a bigger reward. Each constituent (verbs and the small vs. large fish) signals the intended exchange, and this small-for-big metaphor is cross-linguistically familiar, so a learner who knows the words can infer the meaning.
Etymology
Throw a sprat to catch a mackerel comes from fishing: a sprat is a very small fish thrown as bait to bring in a larger mackerel, so fishermen would 'throw a sprat' to catch the bigger fish. So the saying means 'to give up a small thing to get something much larger'.