Meaning
To raise a false alarm so many times that people stop believing you even when the danger turns out to be real.
The phrase carries a specific warning about credibility, not just deception — the real cost falls on the person who cried wolf, at the exact moment they finally need to be believed.
Origin
The fable is traditionally credited to Aesop (Perry Index #210), but its transmission is more complicated than the attribution suggests: it survived only in Greek and wasn’t translated into Latin until the 15th century, remaining largely unknown in Europe until Heinrich Steinhöwel’s collection helped popularize it. William Caxton printed an English version in 1484 titled “Of the child whiche kepte the sheep,” and Sir Roger L’Estrange retold it again in 1692, both keeping the story in circulation long before “cry wolf” hardened into a fixed English idiom for a habitual false alarm. The original Greek moral was blunter than the modern lesson about deception in general: it specifically warned that liars pay a price beyond the immediate harm of any single lie — “even when they tell the truth, no one believes them” — a point close to one the philosopher Aristotle is separately recorded as having made about habitual liars.
Examples
He’s cried wolf so many times about quitting that nobody takes him seriously anymore.
The town stopped responding to her calls after she cried wolf twice in one month.
Don’t cry wolf over every minor issue, or no one will listen when something’s actually wrong.
A: “Should we call the fire department again?” B: “After all those false alarms, I don’t want to cry wolf one more time.”
Frequently asked questions
What does 'Cry wolf' mean?
To raise a false alarm so many times that people stop believing you even when the danger turns out to be real.
The phrase carries a specific warning about credibility, not just deception — the real cost falls on the person who cried wolf, at the exact moment they finally need to be believed.