1581: Crocodile Tears is in over 40 Languages Apr 13, 2019

Although we think of idioms as being fairly culturally specific, a calque for 'crocodile tears' exists in over 40 European languages, and even some outside Europe including in Swahili and apparently Mongolian. Part of the reason for this that there was a myth that crocodiles shed a tear when they ate their prey, but since this phrase had existed in Latin too, it disseminated the idea into other, modern languages. Crocodiles do actually have tears that are only for moisture and not emotion, so there is some truth behind it as well.

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