the die is cast
The decision is made and there is no going back.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“We have sent the offer. The die is cast.”
“Once the election date was announced, the die was cast and every party had to run on whatever it had ready.”
“He had argued against the plan for months, but the moment the board voted the die was cast, and his energy went into making a decision he disliked work as well as it possibly could.”
The words belong to the same moment at the Rubicon. Suetonius gives them in Latin — iacta alea est, the die is thrown — as Caesar orders his army across.
Plutarch reports something more interesting. He says Caesar spoke in Greek, quoting a line from the comic playwright Menander, and that the sense was closer to "let the die be thrown": not a statement that the result is fixed, but an instruction to throw and accept whatever comes up. A die, here, is a single dice — the singular of dice, a word English otherwise lost.
Either way the image is the same. The throw has left the hand, the outcome is out of anyone's control, and the only thing left to do is watch it land.
- 01
cast a chill
To provoke an uneasy feeling which stops a conversation, as by an uncalled act or word.
- 02
cast a shadow
To dampen future events.
- 03
cast aside
Synonym of discard.
- 04
cast aspersions
To make damaging or spiteful remarks.
- 05
cast in concrete
solidly established, very difficult to alter
- 06
cast in someone's teeth
To accuse someone of something, or reproach them for it.
- 07
cast loose
To unfasten, loosen, or set free.
- 08
cast of thousands
A large number of people in one place or carrying out one action.
One general, one river, and the end of the Republic.
- 01
cross the Rubicon (idiom)
To take a step you cannot undo.
The Rubicon, January 49 BC.
- 02
veni, vidi, vici (idiom)
I came, I saw, I conquered — used of a job done fast and without difficulty.
Zela, 47 BC — the war report.
- 03
Caesar's wife must be above suspicion (idiom)
People in public positions must avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing, guilty or not.
The Bona Dea scandal, 62 BC.
- 04
beware the Ides of March (idiom)
A warning that a specific day, or a trusted circle, holds danger.
Spurinna's warning, 15 March 44 BC.
- 05
Et tu, Brute? (idiom)
Said when the person betraying you is the last one you expected.
Brutus, in the Senate.
- 06
sic semper tyrannis (idiom)
Thus always to tyrants — a slogan claiming that oppressors get what is coming to them.
What the assassins told themselves.
Last updated August 10, 2026