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bury your talents
idiomTo waste your natural abilities by failing to use or develop them.
Origin
The phrase comes from the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14–30. A master entrusts money to three servants; two invest and double it, but the third, afraid, buries his single talent in the ground and returns it untouched, and is condemned for producing nothing.
Crucially, a talent here was a unit of money — a large weight of silver — not an ability. The modern meaning of talent as a natural gift grew directly out of this parable, as readers took the buried coin as a figure for a wasted God-given capacity, and the financial term slowly became the word we now use for aptitude.
So to bury your talents in English is to hide away and neglect your abilities out of fear or laziness, letting gifts go to waste that were meant to be put to use.
He spent years in a job he hated, burying his talents while colleagues with half his ability moved ahead.
Her teachers begged her not to bury her talents in a safe, forgettable career, insisting that a gift like hers came along rarely and deserved the risk of actually being used.
The short stories Jesus told to make a point.
- 01
good Samaritan (idiom)
A person who helps someone in distress out of their own good nature.
- 02
the prodigal son (idiom)
Someone who returns, chastened and repentant, after a period of reckless or wasteful living.
- 03
the eleventh hour (idiom)
The very last possible moment before a deadline or a decisive event.
- 04
separate the wheat from the chaff (idiom)
To select only that which is of value.
- 05
a house built on sand (idiom)
A plan or venture with no solid foundation, liable to collapse under pressure.
- 06
the widow's mite (idiom)
A small gift that represents a great sacrifice for the person who gives it.