# jam tomorrow

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/jam-tomorrow
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

Promised benefits that never arrive.

## Examples

- They promise better pay, but it is always jam tomorrow.
- I stop believing his excuses because it is always jam tomorrow.
- You cannot pay your bills with jam tomorrow.
- The manager keeps promising a bonus, but it feels like jam tomorrow every single year.
- The developer claims the software will be bug-free by next month, but we have heard this jam tomorrow story since the project started.
- Our landlord says he will fix the broken heater soon, but it sounds like jam tomorrow while we sit here in the cold.
- The airline offered us travel vouchers for our lost luggage, but after months of waiting for the mail, it looks like another case of jam tomorrow.
- The citizens grew weary of the politician's grand vision for the future, recognizing it as nothing more than jam tomorrow.

## Origin

From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where Alice is offered “jam to-morrow and jam yesterday — but never jam to-day”. This is a pun on a mnemonic for the usage of jam, iam in Latin (note i/j conflation in Latin spelling), which means “now”, but only in the future or past tense, not in the present (which is instead nunc).

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.