be one's own worst enemy

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

be one's own worst enemy (irregular; see conjugation of "be")

1. (idiomatic) To cause problems for one's self, act contrary to one's own interest, self-sabotage.
   • 1870, Mary Dwinell Chellis, Mark Dunning's Enemy‎^[1], page 27:

     “Mark is his own worst enemy. Good night.” True. No enemy however powerful and malicious, can so work a man's ruin as his own unbridled passions and depraved appetites.

   • 1881 [1589], Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, translated by Charles Thornton Forster and F.H. Blackburne Daniell, The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq‎^[2], translation of Legationis Turcicae epistolae quatuor (in Latin), page 221:

     For each man is his own worst enemy, and has no foe more deadly than his own intemperance, which is sure to kill him, if the enemy be not quick.

   • 2024 April 20, Phil McNulty, “Manchester City 1-0 Chelsea”, in BBC Sport‎^[3]:

     Pochettino set his team up ideally to keep City at bay but once again, as they did in that Carabao Cup final loss to Liverpool, Chelsea were their own worst enemies as they squandered opportunities to banish memories of that reverse.

Translations

Translations

• Finnish: olla itsensä pahin vihollinen

Further reading

• “be one's own worst enemy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “be your own worst enemy” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “be your own worst enemy”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “be your own worst enemy” (US) / “be your own worst enemy” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.