chickens come home to roost

Prov. You have to face the consequences of your mistakes or bad deeds. Jill: Emily found out that I said she was incompetent, and now she won't recommend me for that job. Jane: The chickens have come home to roost, I see.

if you say that chickens are coming home to roost, you mean that bad or silly things done in the past are beginning to cause problems There was too much greed in the past, and now the chickens are coming home to roost with crime and corruption soaring.

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).