chickens come home to roost

Slang definitions & phrases for chickens come home to roost

chickens come home to roost

sentence

(Variations: other things may replace chickens) Consequences, although delayed, will happen: The chickens are coming home to roost on Reagan economics/ However the Gulf affair is resolved, it represents large chickens of the 1980s coming home to roost/ Higher interest rates are coming home to roost (1810+)

Idioms and Phrases with chickens come home to roost

chickens come home to roost

The consequences of doing wrong always catch up with the wrongdoer, as in Now that you're finally admitting your true age, no one believes you—chickens come home to roost. The fact that chickens usually come home to rest and sleep has long been known, but the idea was used figuratively only in 1809, when Robert Southey wrote, “Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost” (The Curse of Kehama).