Word.ws English Dictionary

fox guarding the henhouse

fox guarding the henhouse is the alternative form of fox in the henhouse.

Meaning of fox in the henhouse

Noun

fox in the henhouse (plural foxes in the henhouse or foxes in henhouses)

  1. (figuratively, idiomatic) Someone untrustworthy placed in a position of trust in which they will be harmful, damaging or detrimental for their own personal gain.
    • While the Commissioner of Patents is normally expected to understand and to promote the patent system as a bulwark for promoting the U.S. economy, the current Commissioner is, in many ways, a fox in the henhouse, undertaking to destroy that which he was commissioned to protect and to strengthen.1995 October 10, David L. Hill, “The Putsch to Enfeeble the Independent U.S. Inventor”, in Impact on U.S. Exporters of the New GATT Patent Accord: Hearing Before the […] House of Representatives […]...

Forms of fox guarding the henhouse

pluralfoxes guarding the henhouse

Questions about fox guarding the henhouse

What is fox guarding the henhouse the alternative form of?
Fox guarding the henhouse is the alternative form of fox in the henhouse.

Words near fox guarding the henhouse in the dictionary

  1. fox fire
  2. fox fur
  3. fox furs
  4. fox grape
  5. fox grapes
  6. fox guarding the henhouse
  7. Fox Harbour
  8. fox hole
  9. fox holes
  10. fox hunt
  11. fox hunter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fox guarding the henhouse (page history and authors); fox in the henhouse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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