Jackpine English

[Jackpine Radical]

What does that expression, "Hoist by his own petard," mean, anyway?

Here's where it first appeared, in Hamlet:


For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petar;

A petard was a small, old-fashioned bomb that people used for blowing holes in each other's castles and suchlike. The word "petard" is from old French, and meant "fart." The effects of the little bombs, then, were likened to eruptions of abdominal gas. An "enginer" (military engineer) hoist by his own petard was someone who blew himself aloft with his own bomb.

Thus, when we use the phrase "hoist by his own petard," we pay homage to military engineers, medieval bombs, Shakespeare, and farts, all in one concise and colorful, uh, expulsion.

[meegbear]

1. From The Straight Dope ...

Dear Cecil:

"Hoist by my own petard"--everybody says it, and so do I. But neither I, nor anyone else I've ever heard employ this particular cliche, has the slightest idea of what a "petard" is.

The one plausible explanation I've come across holds that a petard was a sort of 19th-century animal trap, a rope and a bent branch arrangement that caught the desired beast by one leg and pulled it up into the air. Can you confirm or deny? --Robert B., Chicago

Dear Robert:

Absolutely.

Oh, you mean I was supposed to pick one? Guess it's gotta be deny, then. The line comes from Shakespeare, specifically Hamlet, act III, scene 4, lines 206 and 207: "For 'tis sport to have the engineer/ Hoist with his own petar...."

The Melancholy Dane is chuckling over the fate he has in store for his childhood comrades, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are plotting to have him killed. Deferring his existential crisis for a moment, Hamlet turns the plot on the plotters, substituting their names for his in the death warrant they carry from King Claudius.

He continues: "But I will delve one yard below their mines/ And blow them at the moon." The key word is "mines," as in "land mines," for that's what a petard is (or "petar," as Shakespeare puts it--people couldn't spell any better then than they do today.) A small explosive device designed to blow open barricaded doors and gates, the petard was a favorite weapon in Elizabethan times.

Hamlet was saying, figuratively of course, that he would bury his bomb beneath Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's and "hoist" them, i.e., "blow them at the moon." Dirty Harry couldn't have put it any better.

The word "petard," we note with a barely suppressed giggle, comes from the Middle French peter, which is derived in turn from the Latin peditum--the sense of which (heh, heh) is "to break wind." Which must mean either that the French had a serious gas problem in those days, or that the petard was of something less than nuclear impact.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_295b.html

[Ghost in the Machine]

2. I like learning something new every day..

Thanks for helping me get it out of the way so early today!!

:hi:

now I can be a doofus for the rest of the day....

[Bassic]

3. Pétard is the French word for firecracker

but it is also used in popular slang to designate guns, or joints, depending on the context.

In Québec, it is also occasionaly used to describe a very attractive individual.