Idiom
eat one's seed corn
Meaning
To consume what is meant for investment instead.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“If you spend all your savings now, you are eating your seed corn.”
“The company sold its essential research equipment to pay for bonuses, effectively eating its seed corn for short-term gain.”
“By liquidating the firm's long-term assets to cover immediate operating losses, the board was essentially eating its seed corn, leaving the business with no future capacity for growth.”
Examples
simple
“If you spend all your savings now, you are eating your seed corn.”
contextual
“The company sold its essential research equipment to pay for bonuses, effectively eating its seed corn for short-term gain.”
complex
“By liquidating the firm's long-term assets to cover immediate operating losses, the board was essentially eating its seed corn, leaving the business with no future capacity for growth.”
Key words
Related idioms
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