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  What it means

  Literally: “The hungry one will reproach another hungry one.” The proverb observes that people who share the same misfortune or hardship often lack compassion for each other — instead of helping, they complain to or criticise one another. It is used to point out the bitter irony that those who suffer most are sometimes the least supportive of fellow sufferers. In everyday speech Poles invoke it when two people in equally difficult situations are found blaming each other rather than showing solidarity.

  English equivalent

  The pot calling the kettle black.

  Vocabulary

  • głodny — hungry (adjective used as a noun: 'the hungry one')
  • głodnemu — to the hungry one (dative singular, indicating the recipient of the reproach)
  • wypomni — will reproach / will bring up as a fault (perfective future of 'wypomnieć')

  Grammar note

  The verb 'wypomnieć' (perfective) means to reproach someone by bringing something up against them. It takes the dative for the person blamed ('głodnemu') and the accusative for the thing blamed — though here the reproach is implied rather than specified. The repetition of the same adjective 'głodny/głodnemu' is the whole point: both subject and indirect object are in the same situation, making the reproach absurd.

  Cultural context

  This proverb appears in older Polish collections and carries a slightly literary register today, though it is still understood by most speakers. It reflects a folk-wisdom observation about envy and competition among people of the same social class or shared hardship. The closest English saying focuses on hypocrisy ('the pot and the kettle'), but the Polish version stresses shared suffering rather than outright hypocrisy.

  Intermediate

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