cry over spilt milk

• cry over spilled milk

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cry over spilt milk (third-person singular simple present cries over spilt milk, present participle crying over spilt milk, simple past and past participle cried over spilt milk)

1. To worry about unfortunate events which have already happened and which cannot be changed.
   • 1738, Jonathan Swift, A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation:

     'Tis a Folly to cry for spilt Milk.

   • 1833, Mr. Warburton, The Sportsman's Cabinet, and Town and Country Magazine, volumes 1-2, page 376:

     The Willington Mare, when she started so fast, Ah! we little thought then that the race was her last: Accurst be the stake that was stained with her blood! But, why cry for spilt milk?—May the next be as good.

   • 1985, "Weird Al" Yankovic (lyrics and music), “Dare to Be Stupid”, in Dare to Be Stupid, performed by "Weird Al" Yankovic:

     There's no more time for crying over spilled milk
     Now it's time for crying in your beer

   • 2016, Barbara Hannay, The Grazier's Wife‎, Penguin Group Australia, →ISBN:

     Don't you bloody dare cry over spilt milk. You only have yourself to blame.

• Usually found as a negative imperative: don't cry over spilt milk or there's no point crying over spilt milk.

• what's done is done, spilt milk

• Gregory Y. Titelman, Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, 1996, →ISBN, p. 63.