Meaning
To put the ball into your own net and thereby score for the opposition - Farlex defines it as earning a point for the opposing team by scoring a goal on one's own net, used especially of soccer. By extension, to do something that has the unintended effect of harming your own interests: the own goal of politics and business. The verb is usually score an own goal or put it in your own net; British commentators also use own-goal as an adjective (an own-goal drought). Keep the extension figurative - calling a literal misdirected pass an own goal overstates it. Regional use: British coinage (football); now international across sport and commentary.
Origin
From association football, where a player who puts the ball into their own team's goal concedes the score; Wiktionary defines the noun plainly and records the synonyms self goal and autogoal. The OED's earliest evidence for own goal is 1922, in The Times (London) - a British coinage from the newspaper record - and the phrase's figurative use, for any act that damages the actor's own cause, has become a staple of political commentary; Wikipedia's list of sports idioms glosses the figurative sense exactly so. The word travels across sports (ice hockey, field hockey, basketball's own variants), and the shame travels with it: the scorer's name enters the match report forever. Wikipedia's own-goal article documents the rule across a dozen football codes.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- autogoal
- self goal
Usage Examples
- We were never back in the game after Thomas scored an own goal late in the second half.
- Leaking the memo was an own goal: it confirmed every charge the opposition had made.
- The party's attack on its own record was the own goal of the campaign.