Idiom
lie at someone's door
Meaning
To be the fault or responsibility of someone.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The mistake lies at your door.”
“The broken window lies at his door because he was playing with the ball.”
“The delay lies at my door since I forgot to send the email.”
“The project failed, and the manager knew the blame lay at his door because he ignored the warnings.”
“If the team loses the game because you forgot to bring the equipment, the defeat will lie at your door.”
“The company's poor reputation lies at the door of the marketing department for releasing such an offensive advertisement.”
“Although the whole group worked on the presentation, the errors in the final data lie at her door.”
“While the committee searched for a scapegoat, the public remained convinced that the ultimate responsibility for the disaster lay at the door of the director.”
Examples
simple
“The mistake lies at your door.”
“The broken window lies at his door because he was playing with the ball.”
“The delay lies at my door since I forgot to send the email.”
contextual
“The project failed, and the manager knew the blame lay at his door because he ignored the warnings.”
“If the team loses the game because you forgot to bring the equipment, the defeat will lie at your door.”
“The company's poor reputation lies at the door of the marketing department for releasing such an offensive advertisement.”
“Although the whole group worked on the presentation, the errors in the final data lie at her door.”
complex
“While the committee searched for a scapegoat, the public remained convinced that the ultimate responsibility for the disaster lay at the door of the director.”
Origin
The idiom is a comparative form of the expression to lay at someone's door. It refers to the attribution of responsibility or blame, existing as a linguistic relative to the active phrasing without recorded historical anecdotes or specific named originators in the available accounts.
Key words
Related idioms
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