Word.ws English Dictionary

foxes in henhouses

foxes in henhouses is the plural 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 […]...

Questions about foxes in henhouses

What is foxes in henhouses the plural of?
Foxes in henhouses is the plural of fox in the henhouse.

Words near foxes in henhouses in the dictionary

  1. foxer
  2. foxers
  3. foxery
  4. foxes
  5. foxes guarding the henhouse
  6. foxes in henhouses
  7. foxes in the henhouse
  8. foxess
  9. foxesses
  10. foxey
  11. foxface

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: foxes in henhouses (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “foxes in henhouses.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/foxes_in_henhouses. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.