sow dragon's teeth

Verb

sow dragon's teeth (third-person singular simple present sows dragon's teeth, present participle sowing dragon's teeth, simple past sowed dragon's teeth, past participle sown dragon's teeth or sowed dragon's teeth)

1. (idiomatic) To perform an action that inadvertently leads to trouble.
   • The dragon's teeth are sown, Baby Charles; I pray God they bearna their armed harvest in your day, if I suld^([sic]) not live to see it. God forbid I should, for there will be an awful day's kemping at the shearing of them.1822 May 29, [Walter Scott], chapter XXVII, in The Fortunes of Nigel. […], volume III (in English), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson...
   • […] as if the dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of the North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds and among the cropped grass...1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book III (The Track of a Storm), page 183
2. (idiomatic) To perform an action that is intended to prevent trouble, but which may actually bring it about.