to eat crow, to swallow one's pride
Engula esse sapo por enquanto e espere o momento certo de agir.
Swallow your pride for now and wait for the right moment to act.
The origin of engolir sapo ("to swallow a toad") is disputed and not firmly documented. The image itself does the work: forcing down something repugnant without spitting it back out, just as one silently absorbs an insult. A popular tale traces it to the biblical plagues of Egypt, where frogs overran the land and supposedly turned up on diners' plates, leaving guests to swallow them rather than make a scene; other accounts point only to European folklore that cast the toad as a vile, hard-to-stomach creature.
Source: Gramática.
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