chickens come home to roost

Meaning of the phrase:

Origin of the phrase:

Considered by many to be the Father of English Literature, Geoffrey Chaucer has been heralded as the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. Many popular expressions that we use on an everyday basis come from his epic tales and poems. The current expression is likely no exception and derives from Chaucer’s The Parson’s Tale, 1380:

“And ofte tyme swich cursynge wrongfully retorneth agayn to hym that curseth, as a bryd that retorneth agayn to his owene nest.”

He didn’t use chickens as the subject of this expression but the idea that wicked words or deeds may return to trouble the originator is present: and often time with cursing wrongfully, [the curse] returns again to him that cursed, as a bird that returns again to its own nest.

It is Robert Southey who is credited with returning chickens to their roost, likely borrowing the expression from Chaucer and rewriting it with fewer vowels, in his 1810 poem The Curse of Kehama:

“Curses are like young chicken: they always come home to roost.”

The term also found its way into newspapers as is recorded in The Sydney Herald, Septemeber 27, 1841:

“The South Australians began, in the first instance, attacking the other colonies, and they now find the truth of the adage, that ‘Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.'”