Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Petard

Curiously, we (at least me) have used phrases my entire life, and know what the phrase means, but not what the words mean.   Such is the case with "Hoist with his own Petard", meaning a person who has been spoiled by their own scheme.  It originated in Shakespeare's Hamlet, where a bomb-maker is blown ("hoist", the past tense of "hoise") off the ground by his own bomb ("petard").  A petard is a small bomb and translates to "firecracker" in English, just like the 10-pack of explosives shown below.

https://interestingliterature.com/2020/07/hoist-with-his-own-petard-phrase-origins-meaning



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