See sow dragon's teeth in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"3": "",
"4": "dragon's teeth"
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"expansion": "Ancient Greek ὀδόντες (του) δρᾰ́κοντος (odóntes (tou) drákontos, “dragon's teeth”)",
"name": "cog"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Derives from the ancient Greek myth where Jason sowed the teeth of a dragon into a field, from which they sprouted into an army of warriors.\nSee also Ancient Greek ὀδόντες (του) δρᾰ́κοντος (odóntes (tou) drákontos, “dragon's teeth”) and Σπαρτοί (Spartoí, “sown [men]”) from σπείρω (speírō, “to sow”).⁽ʷᵖ⁾",
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"form": "sows dragon's teeth",
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"form": "sowing dragon's teeth",
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"expansion": "sow dragon's teeth (third-person singular simple present sows dragon's teeth, present participle sowing dragon's teeth, simple past sowed dragon's teeth, past participle sown dragon's teeth or sowed dragon's teeth)",
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"pos": "verb",
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{
"ref": "1822 May 29, [Walter Scott], chapter XXVII, in The Fortunes of Nigel. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, pages 100–101:",
"text": "The dragon'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.",
"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book III (The Track of a Storm), page 183:",
"text": "[…] as if the dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, 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.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1979, Stephen King, The Dead Zone, →ISBN:",
"text": "But you don't sow 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.",
"type": "quote"
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],
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"To perform an action that inadvertently leads to trouble."
],
"id": "en-sow_dragon's_teeth-en-verb-2bxkeHkN",
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"(idiomatic) To perform an action that inadvertently leads to trouble."
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"(idiomatic) To perform an action that is intended to prevent trouble, but which may actually bring it about."
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"_dis1": "38 62",
"word": "open Pandora's box"
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{
"_dis1": "38 62",
"word": "reap what one sows"
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"_dis1": "38 62",
"word": "sow the wind, reap the whirlwind"
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"_dis1": "39 61",
"code": "la",
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"word": "dentes draconis serere"
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"word": "sow dragon's teeth"
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"name": "cog"
}
],
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"pos": "verb",
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"word": "open Pandora's box"
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{
"word": "reap what one sows"
},
{
"word": "sow the wind, reap the whirlwind"
}
],
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"ref": "1822 May 29, [Walter Scott], chapter XXVII, in The Fortunes of Nigel. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, pages 100–101:",
"text": "The dragon'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.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book III (The Track of a Storm), page 183:",
"text": "[…] as if the dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, 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.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1979, Stephen King, The Dead Zone, →ISBN:",
"text": "But you don't sow 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.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
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"To perform an action that inadvertently leads to trouble."
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"(idiomatic) To perform an action that inadvertently leads to trouble."
],
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},
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"(idiomatic) To perform an action that is intended to prevent trouble, but which may actually bring it about."
],
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],
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"code": "la",
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"sense": "Translations",
"word": "dentes draconis serere"
}
],
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"word": "sow dragon's teeth"
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Download raw JSONL data for sow dragon's teeth meaning in English (4.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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