it is what it is

I

it is what it is (idiom)
/ɪt ɪz wɒt ɪt ɪz/

Meanings

• Accepting a situation as it is, even if it’s not ideal.
• Acknowledging something cannot be changed, so complaining is useless.
• Life goes on despite circumstances.
• Resigned acknowledgment of reality.
• Something truly is what it appears to be (literal).

Synonyms: that’s life; so be it; that’s how it is; c’est la vie; such is life; let it be.

Example Sentences

1. It is what it is, and no amount of arguing will change the canceled flight.
2. We gave our best in the match, but it is what it is at the end of the day.
3. Life can be unpredictable; sometimes, it is what it is when things don’t go your way.
4. They explained the reason, and honestly, it is what it is—nothing more to discuss.
5. The photograph turned out blurry; that’s just it is what it is (literal).

Origin and History

Competing Theories About the Origin

Scholars and lexicographers agree that “it is what it is” gained modern currency in the mid-twentieth century as a concise, fatalistic verdict on an unchangeable situation. Yet the wording is much older. Early modern theologians in Britain used the exact phrase as a stock example of evasive or elliptical talk, often contrasted with God’s self-designation “I AM THAT I AM” (Exod. 3:14). In a seventeenth-century sermon, the Scottish divine Hugh Binning illustrates how people refuse to elaborate:

“We say, It is what it is, I have said what I have said.”

This shows the expression functioning as a metalinguistic shrug centuries before its modern resurgence. In the twentieth century, the phrase reappears in U.S. journalism stripped of theological framing and repurposed as a secular, stoic cliché—likely the bridge by which it entered contemporary sports and business talk.

Country of First Appearance

As a modern free-standing idiom expressing resignation, the earliest widely cited instance is American: a 1949 column by J. E. Lawrence in the Nebraska State Journal. That print appearance establishes the idiom’s modern U.S. origin. However, the wording itself first appeared in seventeenth-century Britain (Scotland and England), where ministers and philosophers used the phrase within theological or philosophical discussion rather than as a casual idiom. Both facts are true: British for the early formula; American for the modern idiom.

Earliest Printed Records

The earliest printed occurrence of the exact wording is in seventeenth-century Scotland. Hugh Binning (1627–1653), in a sermon preserved among his collected works, writes:

“You know it is our manner of speech when we would cover any thing … we say, ‘It is what it is, I have said what I have said.'”

Binning’s sermons circulated posthumously; one of the relevant collections was printed at Edinburgh in 1676 (Heart-humiliation, or, Miscellany sermons, James Glen).

For the earliest attested use in the modern idiomatic sense—a pithy, fatalistic assessment—the best-known citation is journalist J. E. Lawrence’s 1949 column in the Nebraska State Journal:

“There is nothing of sham or hypocrisy in it. It is what it is, without apology.”

This usage marks the phrase’s entry into American English as an expression of stoic acceptance.

Path to Popularity

From that 1949 Midwestern attestation, the phrase spread through American journalism and especially sports talk, where coaches and players adopted it as a ready-made stoicism about results and injuries. William Safire described this modern diffusion and categorized the expression as a “tautophrase”—a self-affirming statement whose repetition carries rhetorical force even as it adds no new information. The idiom’s durability likely owes to this fusion of brevity, rhythm, and world-weary pragmatism.

Origin Summary

As wording, it is what it is appears in British sermons as early as 1676. As a modern idiom of resignation, its earliest documented use is American, in 1949. The phrase transitioned from a theological and philosophical context into popular language, eventually becoming a universal shorthand for acceptance and inevitability.

Variants

1. that’s just the way it is.
2. things are the way they are.
3. what’s done is done.
4. that’s life.
5. so it goes.

Life, Situation