An idiomatic expression for the situation when a punisher in fact punishes himself rather than the one he intended to punish

Question

The context:

Someone wishes to punish somebody, and the wish is so strong that whatever they think will do a lot of harm to the one planned to be punished, they do it obviously at the expense of their own welfare, much higher than the prognosticated result of the punishment.

For example, in Russia, famous for its frosty winter, there's a saying which may be translated into English as "To spite my mom I'll frostbite my ears".

Is there an English idiom, maybe a couple or so idiomatic expressions, exactly or approximately matching the above-mentioned Russian saying?

Answer 1

Cutting off your nose to spite your face is a stock phrase for this; Wikipedia says it's been in use for 800 years!

Answer 2

One old phrase is

Hoist with his own petard

It is a Shakespearean idiom from Hamlet meaning "to cause the bomb maker to be blown up with his own bomb". Is used now to indicate that a plan has backfired badly.

Answer 3

There is, in addition to the above, the phrase "to fall into a pit [you have] prepared for another", which I think is Biblical.

Answer 4

From the story: The Mouse, the Frog, and the Hawk comes the moral:

Harm hatch, harm catch.

Meaning: if you want to cause harm to someone else it will come back to you. I like this phrase because it's catchy.

Answer 5

There's also "Pyrrhic victory", in which you "won", but in the process did such harm to yourself as to practically offset the benefits.

"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined." — Plutarch

Wikipedia

Answer 6

The Biblical stock phrase is "kicking one's own feet against the goads" -- the implication that the goads are supposed to be pushed into the ox you're driving.

Answer 7

"Blowback" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blowback

This is somewhat more generic that just applying to punishment, but it fits.

Answer 8

"Shoot oneself in the foot" can mean what the above example means, but it is a stretch. In Wikipedia an example was made where two persons are arguing, and one of them is intending to report the other to administration, but they could get themselves in worse trouble than the other. The expression can also be used in ways that do not illustrate the above, where a person brings harm to themself by doing something ill-advised (a dumb move) without having wanted to harm another, as explained on worldwidewords.org. “Eric Partridge says that to shoot oneself in the foot dates from the 1980s and means a person has made a self-defeating, counter-productive blunder." Here is a similar example in the Oxford English Dictionary, from Aviation Week in 1976: “Why we seem to insist on shooting ourself in the foot over this issue, I’ll never know.” Finally, as discussed on worldwidewords.org, soldiers might shoot themselves in the foot to avoid going to battle. In "Death in the Woods and other stories" by Sherwood Anderson, 1933, a character discussed a man who had done this.

Answer 9

I don't know an idiomatic expression, but referring to Moby Dick will get point across that a person will meet his own downfall before giving up on revenge.

Even while his ship is sinking, Ahab, in his whaling boat, throws his harpoon at Moby Dick one last time. He misses, catching himself around the neck with the rope and causing his own drowning/strangling death. Source

However, while having a personal Moby Dick is a reference to an obviously impossible task to the reader, the captain Ahab didn't realize it because of his single-mindedness.

Answer 10

The person shot (himself, herself) in the foot.