to dig a hole for oneself
- idiom
- Informal
:
cavarse una tumba
- Every time you procrastinate, you're digging a hole for yourself that will lead to more stress later.
Examples
-
By lying to your friends, you are digging a hole for yourself that will be hard to escape.
-
If you keep making these poor decisions, you're just digging a hole for yourself.
-
You're digging a hole for yourself, Mas.
Synonyms
20
8.4
Do or say something that harms your own chances
3
7.1
To do something that makes you fail
1
7.5
Cause trouble for yourself by your actions, often by accident
Do something that causes trouble for yourself later
To create problems for yourself later
Acting in a way that harms you because you trust your own wrong ideas
Antonyms
How Harmful
- Informal
200
2.6
37
1.0
- Informal
27
4.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
dig + a + hole + for + oneself
The literal meanings of 'dig', 'hole' and 'oneself' create a clear image of someone creating a problem for themselves, so a learner who knows the constituents can often infer the metaphorical sense. However, this is a conventionalized metaphorical extension rather than a strictly compositional phrase, so the exact idiomatic sense ('to cause problems for yourself') may not be fully predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
The idiom dig a hole for oneself may come from the simple image of someone using a shovel to dig a hole and then getting stuck inside it. So, it means 'to make a problem for yourself'.