cry wolf

Idioms  

1. Raise a false alarm, as in Helen's always crying wolf about attempted break-ins, but the police can never find any evidence. This term comes from the tale about a young shepherd watching his flock who, lonely and fearful, called for help by shouting “Wolf!” After people came to his aid several times and saw no wolf, they ignored his cries when a wolf actually attacked his sheep. The tale appeared in a translation of Aesop's fables by Roger L'Estrange (1692), and the expression has been applied to any false alarm since the mid-1800s.

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Example Sentences

“The challenge is always, you don’t want to cry wolf too soon, but you certainly don’t want to wait until the wolf’s eating you, either,” he said of declaring a drought.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 3, 2024

That sort of description typically makes me urp; too many critics serve it up every week or two and they cry wolf, or masterwork, or not-to-be-missed too often to be trusted.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 12, 2024

“You can’t just kind of cry wolf all the time,” Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago’s health commissioner, told The Times.

From New York Times • Jul. 21, 2022

There are only so many times someone can cry wolf before they're laughed off the air, critics tweeted.

From Salon • Jul. 1, 2021

This makes six times you’ve run home to cry wolf.

From Adventures of Working Men From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon by Fenn, George Manville