Some proverbs are valuable precisely because they are ordinary — a plain sentence that happens to drill a core pattern perfectly. Lež má krátké nohy is one of those. Literally "a lie has short legs," it warns that lies don't get you far: sooner or later the truth catches up. Grammatically it is a textbook subject–verb–object sentence, and reading it slowly will lock in three of the most reusable mechanics in Czech — word order, adjective agreement, and the accusative plural.
Lež má krátké nohy.
A lie has short legs. (i.e. lies don't get you far; the truth catches up.)
Word by word
| Word | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| lež | nominative singular of lež (f.) — the subject | a lie |
| má | 3rd person singular of mít | has |
| krátké | accusative plural, feminine, of the adjective krátký | short |
| nohy | accusative plural of noha (f.) — the object | legs |
The skeleton is subject (lež) → verb (má) → object (krátké nohy) — the same order as English "A lie has short legs." That parallel is a gift: it lets you focus on the forms of the words without also fighting unfamiliar word order.
Grammar in action 1: the SVO frame and the verb mít
The subject lež ("a lie") is in the nominative — the case for whoever or whatever does or is. The verb is má, the third-person singular of mít "to have," one of the highest-frequency verbs in the language. Its present is worth having cold:
| Person | mít |
|---|---|
| já | mám |
| ty | máš |
| on/ona/ono | má |
| my | máme |
| vy | máte |
| oni/ony | mají |
The full conjugation lives on the present of mít page. Czech word order is famously flexible, but this proverb uses the neutral, unmarked SVO arrangement — the same one you'd reach for in a thousand everyday sentences.
Lhář má dobrou paměť — musí si pamatovat, co komu řekl.
A liar has a good memory — he has to remember what he told whom. (another SVO sentence with má)
Naše dcera má krásné dlouhé vlasy.
Our daughter has lovely long hair. (subject – má – object)
Grammar in action 2: full adjective agreement
Here is the single most important lesson the proverb teaches an English speaker. The adjective krátké does not just sit in front of its noun unchanged, the way English "short" does. It agrees with nohy in gender, number, and case — it physically changes shape to match. The dictionary form of the adjective is krátký; to modify a feminine, plural, accusative noun it must become krátké.
This is attributive agreement, and Czech applies it relentlessly. The adjective is like a chameleon taking the color of its noun:
| Noun phrase | Gender / number / case | Adjective form |
|---|---|---|
| krátká sukně | feminine sg. nom. | krátká |
| krátké nohy | feminine pl. (nom./acc.) | krátké |
| krátký film | masculine inan. sg. | krátký |
| krátké vlasy | masc. inan. pl. (acc.) | krátké |
English speakers consistently forget this, because English adjectives never inflect — "short legs," "short hair," "a short film" all keep the bare word short. In Czech the adjective is welded to the grammar of its noun. The mechanics are laid out fully on adjective–noun agreement.
Má dlouhé nohy, hodí se na basketbal.
She has long legs, she's cut out for basketball. (dlouhé agrees with nohy, just like krátké)
Mám krátké vlasy, protože se o ně nechci starat.
I have short hair because I don't want to fuss over it. (same -é ending, this time with masc. inanimate vlasy)
Grammar in action 3: the accusative plural object
Why is krátké nohy in the accusative? Because it is the direct object of má — the thing the lie has. Direct objects in Czech go in the accusative, and here the object is plural, so we need the accusative plural.
Now a quietly reassuring fact, and a classic trap dressed up as a gift: for feminine žena-type nouns like noha, the accusative plural looks identical to the nominative plural — both are nohy. So nohy could in principle be a subject (nominative) or an object (accusative); only its role in the sentence tells you which. Here it is the object, hence accusative — but the visible form is the same either way.
Bolí mě nohy, celý den jsem stál.
My legs/feet hurt, I stood all day. (here nohy is the nominative subject — same form, different role)
Natáhni nohy a odpočiň si.
Stretch out your legs and rest. (nohy is the accusative object of natáhni — same form again)
The fuller picture of when the accusative plural matches the nominative and when it diverges is on the accusative plural page.
Grammar in action 4: noha and the body-part nouns
The word noha ("leg, foot") is an ordinary hard feminine noun in the singular and in the nominative/accusative plural (noha → nohy). But it belongs to a small club of paired body parts — noha, ruka (hand/arm), oko (eye), ucho (ear) — that preserve fossilized dual endings in some of their plural cases, left over from an old Czech grammatical number for "exactly two." You don't see it in this proverb, but you meet it the moment you put nohy into the genitive, locative, or instrumental:
| Case (plural) | Regular žena-type | noha (dual remnant) |
|---|---|---|
| nom./acc. | nohy | nohy |
| genitive | (žen) | nohou / noh |
| locative | (ženách) | nohou / nohách |
| instrumental | (ženami) | nohama |
That -ama instrumental (nohama, rukama, očima, ušima) is the unmistakable signature of the old dual, and it is still completely alive in modern Czech.
Stál tam s rukama v kapsách.
He stood there with his hands in his pockets. (rukama = dual-remnant instrumental of ruka)
The dedicated pages on body-part duals and remnants of the dual cover the whole set.
The metaphor, and how Czechs use it
The image is vivid: a lie has short legs, so it cannot run far — it gets caught, overtaken by the truth. It is the close cousin of English the truth will out, lies have short legs (English has the same idiom, just less common), or a lie has no legs to stand on. Strikingly, the very same picture exists across Europe — German Lügen haben kurze Beine, Italian le bugie hanno le gambe corte — which tells you how old and widespread the metaphor is.
You'll hear it as a gentle warning, often to a child or to someone tempted to cover something up: don't bother lying, it won't hold.
Radši mu řekni pravdu — lež má krátké nohy a stejně to praskne.
Better tell him the truth — a lie has short legs and it'll come out anyway. (everyday use of the proverb)
Pravda vždycky vyjde najevo.
The truth always comes to light. (a related saying you'll hear in the same breath)
Common Mistakes
❌ Lež má krátký nohy.
Incorrect — the adjective must agree with the feminine plural nohy: krátké, not the dictionary form krátký.
✅ Lež má krátké nohy.
A lie has short legs.
❌ Lež mít krátké nohy.
Incorrect — the verb must be conjugated to agree with the singular subject: má, not the infinitive mít.
✅ Lež má krátké nohy.
A lie has short legs.
❌ Má krátké nohách.
Incorrect — the object is accusative plural (nohy); nohách is the locative, used after prepositions like na.
✅ Má krátké nohy.
It has short legs.
❌ Stál tam s rukami v kapsách.
Incorrect — the body-part instrumental keeps the dual: rukama, not the regular rukami.
✅ Stál tam s rukama v kapsách.
He stood there with his hands in his pockets.
Key Takeaways
- The proverb is a clean SVO sentence: lež (subject, nom.) — má (verb) — krátké nohy (object, acc. pl.).
- má is the 3sg of mít; learn mám, máš, má, máme, máte, mají.
- Adjectives agree in gender, number, and case: krátký → krátké to match the feminine plural nohy.
- The accusative plural of noha is nohy — identical to the nominative plural; role, not form, marks it as the object.
- noha and the other paired body parts keep dual remnants (nohama, rukama) in some plural cases.
Now practice Czech
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Start learning Czech→Related Topics
- Adjective–Noun AgreementA2 — Every Czech adjective copies its noun's gender, number, and case — so the same adjective wears a different ending in nearly every phrase, and getting the noun right but the adjective wrong is still an error.
- The Accusative PluralB1 — Forming the accusative plural and how animacy stops mattering in the plural object.
- Ruka, Noha, Oko, Ucho: The Body-Part DualsB1 — The four paired body parts with historical dual genitive/locative and -ma instrumental forms.
- Present of MítA1 — The present paradigm of mít and its negatives.
- Remnants of the Dual: Hands, Eyes, Legs, EarsA2 — The special paired-body-part forms that survive from the old Czech dual number.