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mousetrap

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From: The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms
Date: 20040101
Author:JUDITH SIEFRING

mousetrap a better mousetrap an improved version of a well-known article.

•This expression comes from an observation attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1889, though also claimed by Elbert Hubbard: ‘If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, tho’ he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door’.

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