Short answer: The fly in the ointment origin is Ecclesiastes 10:1, which in the King James Bible reads "Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour." The exact phrase is not in the Bible, though. The Phrase Finder gives a 1707 religious treatise by John Norris as the earliest example of the modern wording. "A flash in the pan" comes from flintlock guns, where the priming powder could flash without firing the shot. Neither phrase is dying in print, but in a British poll most people under 50 said they never use either one.
What "a fly in the ointment" means
A fly in the ointment is one small flaw that spoils something otherwise good: "The new job is perfect. The only fly in the ointment is the commute." The Phrase Finder, which we read on September 28, 2026, defines it as a small but irritating flaw that spoils something otherwise good, and notes that in the twentieth century it also came to mean a minor problem that ruins an otherwise flawless plan.
Register: neutral. It works in conversation, journalism and most business writing, though it can sound a little bookish in casual speech. Region: used in both American and British English.
The point of the image is proportion. The fly is tiny and the jar is large, but nobody wants to use the ointment once the fly is in it. That is why the phrase is used for a single drawback, not for a situation that is bad all around.
Fly in the ointment origin: Ecclesiastes 10:1
The image comes from the Old Testament. The King James Version of Ecclesiastes 10:1 reads: "Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour."
The verse is making a moral point. A small amount of foolishness ruins a wise person's reputation, the way a few dead flies ruin a jar of perfume. According to The Phrase Finder's entry on the phrase, read on September 28, 2026, the "ointment" of the time was more likely a cosmetic or ceremonial oil than a medicine, which explains why a fly would matter so much: this was a costly, fragrant product, not a tube of cream.
What the verse does not contain is the phrase itself. Grammarphobia, in an April 2021 post read on September 28, 2026, states that "a fly in the ointment" does not appear in any English translation of the Bible, nor in the Latin, Greek or Hebrew texts. The idiom is a later English compression of the verse, the same way many sayings are cut down from a longer sentence. Our page on the 1605 sentence "the proof is in the pudding" was cut from shows the same process with a different phrase.
When the phrase itself first appears: the references disagree
Three references give three different "first" dates, and each is answering a slightly different question.
| Date | Writer and work | Wording | Reported by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1686 | Thomas Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity | "that which was a dead fly in the ointment, was, that they did not aim at gods glory" | Grammarphobia |
| 1707 | John Norris, A Practical Treatise Concerning Humility | "'Tis that dead fly in the ointment of the Apothecary" | The Phrase Finder |
| 1823 | Charles Lamb, "Poor Relations," London Magazine | "a fly in your ointment" | Grammarphobia, citing the Oxford English Dictionary's earliest example |
The Watson and Norris examples both say "dead fly" and still sit close to the Bible verse. Lamb's 1823 line is the first of the three with the short, free-standing form people use now. Grammarphobia notes that Lamb placed it alongside other scriptural allusions, "a Lazarus at your door" and "a lion in your path," so his readers would still have heard the Bible behind it.
The honest summary: the image is biblical, the phrase grew out of religious writers' use of the verse in the late 1600s and early 1700s, and the modern short form is on record by 1823. If a site gives you a single tidy first date, ask which of these three questions it is answering. Our explainer on how a phrase origin is traced covers why "first use" is so often a moving target.
What "a flash in the pan" means
A flash in the pan is something that starts with a burst of promise and then comes to nothing: "Their first album was a hit, but the band turned out to be a flash in the pan." The Phrase Finder defines it as something that disappoints by failing to deliver anything of value, despite a showy beginning. Wiktionary lists two senses: a passing event with no lasting impact, and a career with early success that is not followed by anything significant.
Register: neutral, and common in sports, business and entertainment writing. It is mildly critical, so use it about a trend or a product more comfortably than about a person you are speaking to. Region: both American and British English.
Flash in the pan origin: the flintlock musket
The phrase comes from the flintlock gun. The Phrase Finder's page on "flash in the pan," read on September 28, 2026, explains that a flintlock carried a small pan of priming powder. Pulling the trigger struck a spark into the pan, which was meant to fire the main charge in the barrel. When the priming powder burned but the main charge did not go off, the result was literally a flash in the pan. Wiktionary describes the same misfire as producing noise and smoke but no real effect.
For the earliest record, The Phrase Finder quotes Elkanah Settle in 1687, mocking one of John Dryden's metaphors: "If Cannons were so well bred in his Metaphor as only to flash in the Pan, I dare lay an even wager that Mr. Dryden durst venture to Sea." Word Histories gives a clearly figurative example from 1703, in a comic verse by the satirist Thomas Brown about a man who "Is unable to make a poor Flash in the Pan."
The gold rush story does not fit
A popular explanation says the phrase comes from prospectors who saw a glint of gold in their pans that turned out to be nothing. The Phrase Finder calls this attractive but states plainly that gold prospecting is not the origin. The dates settle it: the phrase is in print in the 1680s, long before the California Gold Rush of the mid-1800s. Our page on the bite the bullet origin shows the same test, a colorful origin story checked against the dates, failing in a different way.
Alive or dying? What the data shows
Both phrases have a reputation for being old-fashioned. The evidence is mixed, and the mix is the interesting part.
In books, neither phrase is fading. We pulled yearly figures from the Google Books Ngram Viewer's English 2019 corpus on September 28, 2026, with no smoothing, and averaged three ten-year windows. The figures are average uses per billion four-word phrases, calculated by us from Google's yearly values.
| Phrase | 1900 to 1909 | 1946 to 1955 | 2010 to 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|
| a fly in the ointment | about 21.5 | about 53.1 | about 64.1 |
| a flash in the pan | about 33.6 | about 55.7 | about 56.6 |
"Fly in the ointment" more than doubled in print between the 1900s and the 1950s and was still higher in the 2010s. "Flash in the pan" rose early and then held steady.
In speech, the picture is different. In January 2022, the research firm Perspectus Global published a list of traditional British sayings that people under 50 said they never use. "A fly in the ointment" was on it at 59 percent, and "a flash in the pan" at 57 percent. Upworthy's report on the poll gives the sample as 2,000 people aged 18 to 50. It is a single commercial poll about British sayings, so it says nothing direct about American speakers, and "never use" is not the same as "do not understand."
Put together, the fair verdict is: alive in writing, quieter in younger people's speech. Neither phrase is dated in the way "in a brown study" is. Both are safe in an article or a report. In a casual chat with younger listeners, they may sound a touch formal.
Using both phrases today
- In writing: use them freely. They are neutral and widely understood by fluent readers.
- In speech: fine, with a slightly literary feel. "The one catch" or "the only problem" is the everyday equivalent of "the fly in the ointment."
- For English learners: these are worth recognizing but not essential to produce. "Short-lived" or "a one-hit wonder" often replace "a flash in the pan" in casual talk.
- Watch the article: it is "a fly in the ointment" when you introduce the problem and "the fly in the ointment" when you point to it, and almost always "a flash in the pan."
Frequently asked questions
Is "fly in the ointment" from the Bible?
The image is. Ecclesiastes 10:1 compares a little folly to dead flies spoiling the apothecary's ointment. The exact words "a fly in the ointment" do not appear in any Bible translation, according to Grammarphobia.
When was "fly in the ointment" first used?
It depends on the form. Grammarphobia cites "a dead fly in the ointment" from Thomas Watson in 1686, The Phrase Finder cites John Norris in 1707, and the Oxford English Dictionary's earliest example of the short form, per Grammarphobia, is Charles Lamb in 1823.
Does "flash in the pan" come from gold panning?
No. The Phrase Finder traces it to flintlock guns, where the priming powder could flash without firing the shot. The phrase is recorded in the 1680s, well before the gold rushes of the 1800s.
Is "a fly in the ointment" old-fashioned?
Not in print, where Google Books data shows it more common in the 2010s than in the 1950s. In a 2022 British poll, though, 59 percent of people under 50 said they never use it, so in casual speech it can sound a little formal.
