Pagar los platos rotos
To pay for the broken plates.
to pay the price; **to pay the price**; **to take the blame**; **to carry the can** (British English); **to become the scapegoat**; **to pay for someone else's mistakes**
Pagar los platos rotos means to suffer the consequences or receive the blame for a problem caused by someone else.
Al final fui yo quien pagó los platos rotos.
In the end, I was the one who paid the price.
Siempre acaba pagando los platos rotos.
He always ends up taking the blame.
Los empleados pagaron los platos rotos de la mala gestión.
The employees paid for management's mistakes.
No pienso pagar los platos rotos de otros.
I'm not going to pay for someone else's errors.
The expression implies injustice.
The wrong person ends up paying the price.
- is blamed unfairly
- receives punishment for another person's mistake
- suffers because of decisions made by others
- becomes the scapegoat
- bears the consequences of events they did not cause
The expression comes from an ordinary domestic situation.
When plates are broken, someone has to pay for the damage.
The metaphor gradually came to describe situations in which the person paying is not necessarily the person responsible.
That sense of unfairness remains at the heart of the idiom today.
Spanish speakers often use the expression in discussions about politics, work and family life.
It commonly appears when ordinary people suffer because of decisions made by those in positions of power.
For that reason, it frequently carries a tone of sympathy or indignation.
Spanish often uses everyday household objects to describe human relationships.
Just as tener la sartén por el mango uses a frying pan to talk about power, pagar los platos rotos uses broken plates to talk about injustice.
Ordinary domestic scenes have become some of the most enduring metaphors in everyday Spanish.
Do not translate the expression literally.
English speakers would not naturally say:
He paid for the broken plates.
unless actual crockery had been damaged.
Instead, choose expressions such as:
- He paid the price.
- She took the blame.
- They became the scapegoats.
- He paid for someone else's mistakes.
The emphasis is on unfair consequences, not broken dishes.
There are five hundred more.
The complete collection — no ads, on paper or Kindle.
Get the book on Amazon