Chinese idiom · 成语
引狼入室
Meaning
To lead a wolf into the house; to invite disaster.
Character by character
Origin and story
literary allusionYuan drama already uses the image of bringing a wolf into one's house. In Jia Zhongming's Dui Yu Shu, a woman resisting an unwanted marriage warns that taking her home would be inviting trouble; she compares herself to the wolf. A related line appears in Luo Li Lang. The exact four-character form later occurs in Pu Songling's supernatural tale 'The Li Woman,' whose narrator comments on a disastrous marriage. These literary uses turn the threatening animal into a metaphor for someone admitted into a trusted space who then causes harm. The warning concerns mistaken trust, not outsiders as a group.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
把公司账号交给那个骗子管理，简直是引狼入室。
Putting that scammer in charge of the company account is like inviting a wolf into the house.
Criticizes giving a harmful person access or trust within one's home or organization.