let sleeping dogs lie
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Avoid reviving a past conflict or issue
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Tránh khơi dậy lại mâu thuẫn hoặc vấn đề đã qua
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: leave untouched a potentially fierce animal
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Wouldn't it be better to let sleeping dogs lie?’
‘ I know, doctor, but you see I'm all this time without pain and I think I'll let sleeping dogs lie.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed on Wikipedia “List of proverbial phrases” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “let sleeping dogs lie” mean?
Avoid reviving a past conflict or issue Literally: leave untouched a potentially fierce animal
Is “let sleeping dogs lie” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.