With most phrases and sayings the meaning is well understood but the origin is uncertain. With this one the main interest is the doubt about the meaning. So, this time, we’ll have the origin first.

‘Ne’er cast a clout till May be out’ is an English proverb. The earliest citation is this version of the rhyme from Dr. Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732, although it may have existed in word-of-mouth form well before that:

“Leave not off a Clout Till May be out.

Let’s look first at the ‘cast a clout’ part. The word ‘clout’, although archaic, is straightforward. Since at least the early 15th century ‘clout’ has been used variously to mean ‘a blow to the head’, ‘a clod of earth or (clotted) cream’ or ‘a fragment of cloth, or clothing’. It is the last of these that is meant in ‘cast a clout’. This was spelled variously spelled as clowt, clowte, cloot, clute. Here’s an early example, from the Early English Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, circa 1485:

“He had not left an holle clowt, Wherwith to hyde hys body abowte.”

So, ‘ne’er cast a clout…’ simply means ‘never discard your [warm winter] clothing…’.

hawthornThe ’till May be out’ part is where the doubt lies. On the face of it this means ‘until the month of May is ended’.

There is another interpretation. In England, in May, you can’t miss the Hawthorn. It is an extremely common tree in the English countryside, especially in hedges. Hawthorns are virtually synonymous with hedges. As many as 200,000 miles of hawthorn hedge were planted in the Parliamentary Enclosure period, between 1750 and 1850. The name ‘Haw’ derives from ‘hage’, the Old English for ‘hedge’.