Word.ws English Dictionary

fox in the henhouse

Syllables: fox in the hen·house

fox in the henhouse noun: someone untrustworthy placed in a position of trust in which they will be harmful, damaging or detrimental for their own personal gain.

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 in the henhouse

pluralfoxes in the henhouse
pluralfoxes in henhouses
alternative formfox guarding the henhouse

Origin of fox in the henhouse

A metaphor referring to the fox as a predator that would prey on the chickens if given an opportunity to do so.

Questions about fox in the henhouse

What does fox in the henhouse mean?
Fox in the henhouse means someone untrustworthy placed in a position of trust in which they will be harmful, damaging or detrimental for their own personal gain.
What part of speech is fox in the henhouse?
Fox in the henhouse is a noun.
What is the plural of fox in the henhouse?
The plural of fox in the henhouse is foxes in the henhouse.

Words near fox in the henhouse in the dictionary

  1. fox hunt
  2. fox hunter
  3. fox hunting
  4. fox hunts
  5. fox in the box
  6. fox in the henhouse
  7. Fox Islands
  8. fox kestrel
  9. fox maggot
  10. fox maggots
  11. fox mark

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-fox in the henhouse.ogg.

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