Contextualizebeta

poacher turned gamekeeper

noun

Etymology

The figurative sense is by self-evident metaphor from the literal sense. The thought of poachers turned gamekeepers goes back centuries; for example, William Tinsley said in his memoirs that "There is an old saying that the most expert poachers make the best gamekeepers. I do not think the saying is true as a rule […] "

Definitions

  1. A person now charged with protecting what they formerly preyed upon.

    • Ah! poacher turned gamekeeper! That be settin' thief to catch thief!
    • When President Roosevelt appointed Kennedy to the Securities Exchange Commission, he was acting on the "poacher turned gamekeeper" principle.

  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically

    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see poacher, turned, gamekeeper.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for poacher turned gamekeeper. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA