- English translation
When your own family turns on you, it stings like a scorpion.
- Literal wording
The hostility of kinsfolk is like the stinging of scorpions.
- Meaning and lesson
Enmity from one's own relatives is portrayed here as uniquely harsh. When kin set themselves against someone, the harm they do outweighs what an ordinary adversary could cause, so a quarrel with family carries a weight that disputes with others do not.
The image is specifically a scorpion's sting: sharp, painful and venomous. In Arabic, the words for relatives and scorpions differ by one consonant and rhyme closely. Pairing them presents family hostility as a wound of unusual severity.
- When it is used
Fitting when relatives have become adversaries and someone wants to remark on how painful that turn is. It can serve as a rueful comment on a family rift or as a warning against letting a disagreement with kin harden into enmity.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: When your own family turns on you, it stings like a scorpion.