hoist by one's own petard
- idiom
- Literature
:
ser víctima de su propia trampa
- After trying to cheat others, she found herself hoist by her own petard.
Examples
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She was hoist by her own petard when her deception was discovered.
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Trying to sabotage the project, he ended up hoist by his own petard.
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The corrupt politician was hoist by his own petard when evidence surfaced against him.
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He was hoist by his own petard when his plan backfired.
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She set a trap for her rivals, but in the end, she was hoisted by her own petard.
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The plan to undermine his coworkers backfired, and he found himself hoisted by his own petard.
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In trying to cheat the system, they were ultimately hoisted by their own petard.
Synonyms
20
8.4
Do or say something that harms your own chances
3
7.1
To do something that makes you fail
Acting in a way that harms you because you trust your own wrong ideas
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
hoist + by + one + own + petard
The expression is idiomatic and relies on an archaic/rare noun ('petard') and a metaphorical scenario (being lifted by one's own bomb), so the sense 'be harmed by one's own scheme' is not predictably derived from the parts. Because 'petard' is unfamiliar to most B1 learners and the construction is literary and idiomatic rather than compositional, knowing the individual words would not reliably lead to the intended meaning.
Etymology
Hoist by one's own petard may come from old war tools: a petard was a small bomb placed against a gate, and if it exploded too soon it would hoist (lift) the soldier into the air. That's why the phrase means 'to be harmed by your own plan'.