Meaning
To put someone in a position where they must face hostile attack, harsh criticism or danger without support or protection, typically through the action of whoever should have defended them. Common in political, workplace and media contexts, usually implying that the person was sacrificed for others' convenience. Neutral register but loaded with connotations of betrayal and cowardice by the person doing the throwing. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The allusion is to Roman arena execution, damnatio ad bestias, in which the condemned were exposed to lions and other beasts; the practice dates from around the second century BC, was applied to criminals, deserters and, in some periods, Christians, and was abolished in Rome in AD 681. Tertullian already records crowds shouting for Christians to be sent to the lions. The English figurative idiom is far younger than the practice: the slang dictionary of John Camden Hotten, in the revised text of 1874 digitized by Project Gutenberg, carries the entry 'thrown to the lions', citing Dr. Doran's Princes of Wales, which shows figurative currency by the mid-nineteenth century. An exact first figurative use in English has not been established in the sources checked, so the arena practice is ancient while the idiomatic transfer is Victorian-era or thereabouts.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- fed to the lions
- feed someone to the lions
- thrown to the lions
Usage Examples
- When the expenses scandal broke, the minister threw her aide to the lions rather than face the questions herself.
- The union accused management of throwing the night-shift staff to the lions by cancelling their safety cover.
- I refuse to be thrown to the lions at Monday's press conference for a decision the whole board approved.