make one's bed and lie in it
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.19 in modern English
31
Scrabble Score
21
Letters
1
Syllables
12
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To create a difficult situation whose unpleasant consequences one must now endure.
Example Sentences
- "It was true that he had made his own bed, and he understood the justice which required him to lie upon it."
- "[...] one of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly."
- "Harry said, "It's too bad, but of course we couldn't attempt to smuggle him. The old man has made his bed and he must lie in it.""
- "What has happened is that all the horrible moves he made during his first term . . . are perfectly evident to all. Bush made his bed during his first four years, and now he has to lie in it."
- "“Saakashvili made his own bed,” said Nick Witney, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Affairs and the former chief executive of the European Defense Agency. “It was a pretty catastrophic miscalculation.”"
- "He had made his own bed, chosen his own course in life, taking the path of easy money over hard work and initiative."
Inflected Forms
makes one's bed and lies in it (present, singular)
making one's bed and lying in it (participle, present)
made one's bed and lay in it (past)
made one's bed and lain in it (participle, past)
make one's own bed and lie in it (alternative)
make one's bed (alternative)
make one's own bed (alternative)
make one's bed and sleep in it (alternative)
make the bed one lies in (alternative)