Yesterday it rained quite a lot here in the UK, and rather heavily at times. This got me thinking about the saying it never rains but it pours.

This expression means unfortunate events occur in quantity or misfortunes never come singly. A related saying is bad things come in threes. Fortunately this wasn’t the case for me yesterday, apart from a few minor delays and disruptions on the trains I took [source].

It never rains but it pours can apparently also refer to good things happening all at once or to excess, though I suspect the negative meaning is more common. It first appears in It Cannot Rain But It pours, an article by Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope in Prose Miscellanies, and in It cannot Rain but it Pours OR, London ſrowʼd [strowed] with Rarities, a book by John Arbuthnot published in 1726 [source].

There are similar expressions in other languages, including some that refer to rain:

• 屋漏偏逢连夜雨 [屋漏偏逢連夜雨] (wū lòu piān féng liányè yǔ) = (if your) house leaks, it tends to rain all night long (Mandarin Chinese)
• Nuair a thig cith tig balc = when the rain comes, a downpour comes (Irish)
• Piove sul bagnato = it rains on the wet (Italian)
• 降れば土砂降り (fureba doshaburi) = if it rains, it will be a downpour (Japanese)
• Cuando llueve, diluvia = when it rains, it pours (Spanish)
• När det regnar så öser det ner = when it rains, it pours down (Swedish)

In some languages such sayings mean something like ‘misfortunes do not come alone’ or ‘a misfortune seldom comes alone’:

• En ulykke kommer sjældent alene = a misfortune seldom comes alone (Danish)
• Un malheur ne vient jamais seul = a misfortune never comes alone (French)
• Bėda viena nevaikšto = trouble does not come alone (Lithuanian)
• Nieszczęścia chodzą parami = misfortunes walk in pairs (Polish)
• Helynt ni ddaw ei hunan = trouble does not come by itself (Welsh)
• Hakuna msiba usiokuwa na mwenziwe = there is no tragedy without a companion (Swahili)

Here a few other examples that don’t mention rain or misfortune:

• Ar ein skriðan er lopin er onnur væntandi = when one landslide is over, another is waiting (Faroese)
• Sjaldan er ein báran stök = rarely is a single bear alone (Icelandic)
• Nuair a thig air duine, thig air uile = when it befalls one, it befalls all (Scottish Gaelic)