sow dragon's teeth

Meaning: (idiomatic)Toperformanactionthatinadvertentlyleads totrouble.1822May 29, [Walter Scott], chapter XXVII, inThe Fortunes of Nigel.[…], volume III, Edinburgh:[…][James Ballantyne and Co.] forArchibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co.,→OCLC,pages100–101:Thedragon's teeth are sown, Baby Charles; I pray God they bearna their armed harvest in your day, if I suld[sic]not live to see it. God forbid I should, for there will be an awful day's kemping at the shearing of them.1859,Charles Dickens,A Tale of Two Cities, London:Chapman and Hall,[…],→OCLC, book III (The Track of a Storm),page183:[…]as if thedragon’s teeth had been sownbroadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of the North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds and among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along the fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the sea-shore.1979,Stephen King,The Dead Zone,→ISBN:But you don'tsow dragon's teeth. Not unless you want to get right down there with Frank Dodd in his hooded vinyl raincoat. With the Oswalds and the Sirhans and the Bremmers. Crazies of the world, unite.; (idiomatic)Toperformanactionthat isintendedtopreventtrouble, but which mayactuallybring it about.

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