to come back to bite
12
6.8
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
pasar factura
- And all my bad decisions came back to bite me in the ass.
- come back to bite her now
- come back to bite me someday
- always come back to bite
But you know, some things come back to bite you in the end.
- But you know, some things come back to bite you in the end.
- It will either blow up or come back to bite you.
- And when our sharing comes back to bite us, we feel that we're responsible for that.
- Either way, you, you are feeding that beast and that beast will come back to bite you.
- And of course they take themselves as AG force, which came back to bite us in the arse, but we'll get to that anyway.
- And when it comes back to bite you in the ass, you should just say I'm sorry.
- And the moral of the story is the things that you throw away today can come back to bite you.
- Now the prediction I made two weeks ago which has come back to bite me is that I said we'd have reached the peak by now and it should start to fall.
- In the long run, this will come back to bite you in the behind because again, you're trying to hold on to someone that is probably just not for you.
- My old childhood friends, my son's father, my, you know, it's like it came back to bite me.
Examples
-
And what happens when a new policy comes back to bite you?
Blog text (9) -
Ignoring the warnings about the project could come back to bite the team in the future.
-
But you know, some things come back to bite you in the end.
-
On the bright side for you, it will probably come back to bite her and her new husband.
Blog text (2) -
At some point, however, it will come back to bite them.
Blog text (4) -
And when our sharing comes back to bite us, we feel that we're responsible for that.
-
I knew someday this would come back to bite us.
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If they concentrate on one, the other could come back to bite them.
Academic text (2005) -
Romney forgot that rule, and it came back to bite him big time.
Blog text (30) -
EUGENE: The Ducks' biggest perceived weakness—their kicking game—came back to bite them again Saturday night.
Blog text (1)
Synonyms
13
6.7
To receive punishment or bad results for doing wrong
1
8.4
Bad things you did before cause problems now
To be punished for something you did wrong
Antonyms
How Harmful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The parts 'come' + 'back' + 'bite' yield a plausible literal image of something returning and causing harm, so a learner who knows the words could infer a sense of negative repercussions. However, the phrase relies on a metaphorical extension (repercussions 'biting' someone) and functions idiomatically in discourse, so the precise causal/temporal meaning is not fully predictable without exposure. Overall this makes the expression partially transparent but not transparently compositional for a B1 learner.
Etymology
The phrase come back to bite may come from the image of something you thought was gone that later comes back and bites, like a dog you ignored returning to hurt you. That's why it means 'to have bad results later'.