Idiom
write checks one can't cash
Meaning
To make promises one cannot keep, or to make boasts that are not true.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Don't write checks you can't cash with your boss.”
“The candidate promised to lower taxes, but he is writing checks he cannot cash.”
“You are writing checks you can't cash by telling your friends you will pay for the entire vacation when you haven't even saved enough for the flight.”
“By committing to a project timeline that was clearly impossible, the manager was writing checks he could not cash, eventually losing the trust of his entire team.”
Examples
simple
“Don't write checks you can't cash with your boss.”
contextual
“The candidate promised to lower taxes, but he is writing checks he cannot cash.”
“You are writing checks you can't cash by telling your friends you will pay for the entire vacation when you haven't even saved enough for the flight.”
complex
“By committing to a project timeline that was clearly impossible, the manager was writing checks he could not cash, eventually losing the trust of his entire team.”
Origin
A check (or "cheque" in British English) is a document that orders a financial institution to pay a specific amount of money. The money would be taken from the account of the person who wrote the check and paid to the person in whose name the check has been issued. If one writes a check for an amount of money one does not have available in the associated account, also known as writing a bad check, the resulting check cannot be cashed by the receiving party. In this situation, a promise of payment was made by writing the check, but the promise is not honored due to insufficient funds.
Key words
Related idioms
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