The idiom “cry wolf” means to falsely call for help, resulting in no response when help is actually needed. It originates from Aesop’s fable about a boy who repeatedly cried wolf for fun, causing villagers to ignore his cries when a real wolf appeared. The moral is that liars are not believed even when they tell the truth. The fable and phrase are still used today to teach the consequences of lying.
The English idiom “cry wolf” means to sound a false alarm or call for assistance when there is no assistance. Saying that someone cried wolf also implies that no one will respond to the person’s calls for help should the person really need assistance due to false reporting in the past.
The origins of the phrase cry wolf are in one of Aesop’s fables, entitled The boy who cried wolf or The shepherd boy and the wolf. The fables, collected by Aesop in 5th-century Greece, told stories that taught moral lessons by showing the results of their characters’ bad behavior. At the end of his fables, Aesop related exactly what was the moral significance of his tale. Morality is explained in the sense that liars are not believed even when they tell the truth.
In the story, a boy is sent to look after sheep but he gets bored. He amuses himself by shouting for help, saying that there is a wolf among the sheep. The people of the village respond whenever the boy cries wolf, only to realize that the boy is again making up the danger report and laughing at them for answering his fake danger cries.
Finally a wolf does indeed enter among the sheep and the boy cries wolf. At this point, however, the villagers ignore the boy’s cries for help, believing that he is making up the story again out of boredom. The boy and the sheep are attacked by the wolf and killed, as no one responds to help the boy due to false reports of him in the past.
It was not until 1692 that the fable was first told in English in the translation by Roger L’Estrange. As the fable’s popularity grew and more people learned the story of the boy who cried wolf, most would come to understand the phrase as a warning not to sound false alarms or realize that crying wolf meant someone had given a false report. The idiom probably entered popular speech in the 19th century.
Both the fable and the phrase are still used in contemporary culture. The story is read and told to children to teach them the consequences of lying. The phrase has also lent itself to titles and references in literature and music.
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