Word.ws English Dictionary

made one's bed and lay in it

made one's bed and lay in it is the simple past of make one's bed and lie in it.

Meaning of make one's bed and lie in it

Verb

make one's bed and lie in it (third-person singular simple present makes one's bed and lies in it, present participle making one's bed and lying in it, simple past made one's bed and lay in it, past participle made one's bed and lain in it)

  1. (idiomatic) To create a difficult situation whose unpleasant consequences one must now endure.
    • It was true that he had made his own bed, and he understood the justice which required him to lie upon it.1861, Anthony Trollope, chapter 27, in Framley Parsonage

Questions about made one's bed and lay in it

What is made one's bed and lay in it the simple past of?
Made one's bed and lay in it is the simple past of make one's bed and lie in it.

Words near made one's bed and lay in it in the dictionary

  1. made off with
  2. made off without payment
  3. made one
  4. made one's bed
  5. made one's bed and lain in it
  6. made one's bed and lay in it
  7. made one's bones
  8. made one's bow
  9. made one's entrance
  10. made one's exit
  11. made one's hand

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: made one's bed and lay in it (page history and authors); make one's bed and lie in it (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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