Idiom
let sleeping dogs lie
Meaning
To leave things as they are; especially, to avoid restarting or rekindling an old argument; to leave disagreements in the past.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“It is better to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“We decided not to bring up the old argument and just let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Although the historical injustice still bothered him, he chose to let sleeping dogs lie rather than reopen painful family wounds.”
Examples
simple
“It is better to let sleeping dogs lie.”
contextual
“We decided not to bring up the old argument and just let sleeping dogs lie.”
complex
“Although the historical injustice still bothered him, he chose to let sleeping dogs lie rather than reopen painful family wounds.”
Origin
From Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1380): 'It is nought good a slepyng hound to wake.'
Key words
Related idioms
- Level
- B1 · Intermediate
- Updated