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hoist with one own petard

 - 2 dictionary results

pe⋅tard

  [pi-tahrd]
Use hoist with one own petard in a Sentence
–noun
1. an explosive device formerly used in warfare to blow in a door or gate, form a breach in a wall, etc.
2. a kind of firecracker.
3. (initial capital letter) Also called Flying Dustbin. a British spigot mortar of World War II that fired a 40-pound (18 kg) finned bomb, designed to destroy pillboxes and other concrete obstacles.
—Idiom
4. hoist by or with one's own petard, hurt, ruined, or destroyed by the very device or plot one had intended for another.
Origin:
1590–1600; < MF, equiv. to pet(er) to break wind (deriv. of pet < L pēditum a breaking wind, orig. neut. of ptp. of pēdere to break wind) + -ard -ard
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Word Origin & History

petard 
1598, "small bomb used to blow in doors and breech walls," from Fr. pétard (1580), from M.Fr. péter "break wind," from O.Fr. pet "a fart," from L. peditum, properly neut. pp. of pedere "to break wind" (in M.L. pettus). Surviving in phrase hoist with one's own petard (or some variant) "blown up with one's own bomb," which is ult. from Shakespeare (1605):
"For tis the sport to haue the enginer Hoist with his owne petar" ("Hamlet" III.iv.207).
See hoist.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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