/ · 1894 Brewer’s · R · Reckoning without your Host
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
To guess what your expenses at an hotel will be before the bill has been delivered; to enter upon an enterprise without knowing the cost.
“We thought that now our troubles were over; … but we reckoned without our host.”—Macmillon’s Magazine, 1887.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.