put the cat among the pigeons
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
To create a disturbance and cause trouble.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
At this point an Englishman, Henry Bradbury (1831–60) put a cat among the pigeons.
Removing the coat revealed her to be completely naked, which finally put the cat among the pigeons: they were banished!
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Imported from Wikipedia “English-language idioms” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29), pending review. Figurative class: Euphemism (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “put the cat among the pigeons” mean?
To create a disturbance and cause trouble.
Is “put the cat among the pigeons” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.