When examined, or just because it’s weird on its own.
Example: Beat a dead horse
- You whip a horse to go faster
- It dies from being whipped too much
- You still want the horse to go faster
- You continue to whip it
When examined, or just because it’s weird on its own.
Example: Beat a dead horse
The french used to use an explosive device called a “petard” (old french for a fart), that was used to breach doors. However these would sometimes blow back and kill the user rather than breach the door. This was the original intention for the Shakespearian phrase. One was Hoisted (old verb* not used anymore but essentially blown off their feet) by their own Petard (or door breaching bomb).
More information is here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_with_his_own_petard
*Unrelated to hoist as in to lift, despite similarities
It’s exactly the same word, as I understand it – in this sense, thrown into the air rather than lifted into the air. We’ve started using the past participle as the present tense, and created “hoisted” to fill the gap, and the violent/uncontrolled sense of the word is now archaic.