What does it mean when you break a mirror?
In European and American folk custom, a broken mirror brings seven years of bad luck. The number is often traced to the Romans, who held that life renewed itself in seven-year cycles. The belief itself is better documented than its origin.
Last reviewed October 20, 2026
What each tradition says
Continental Europe, recorded from the medieval period onward
European folk custom
Breaking a mirror has been called unlucky across much of Europe for centuries, with the idea that a mirror holds some part of the person who looks into it. The seven years is the detail repeated most often, and the remedies vary from place to place.
Italy, from around 750 BCE to the fourth century CE
Roman religion
The seven-year figure is often traced to the Romans, who are said to have believed that a person's life renewed itself every seven years, so a broken reflection would last until the next renewal. The explanation is repeated widely, but no ancient source for the seven years has turned up. Another theory ties the number to what a new mirror once cost a servant in wages, and that one is unproven too.
The United States, mostly nineteenth and twentieth century
American folk custom
In the United States the superstition arrived with settlers from Europe and survived mostly as a figure of speech. Today it is more likely to be said with a laugh than believed, though the custom of covering mirrors after a death comes from a different, older practice.
How to weigh it
A shattered mirror is also sharp glass and a small mess. Whatever the custom says, the plain advice is the one that already comes with the glass. The omen is the story people tell about the accident, and the story has more history than the number seven suggests.