a taste of your own medicine

The phrase ‘a taste of your own medicine’ means getting the same bad treatment that one has been giving others. It is often used to express a sense of justice or revenge. The phrase comes from one of Aesop’s fables, where a swindler who sells fake medicine is given his own medicine when he falls ill. Some synonyms for the phrase are karma, payback, or get even.


Democrats are giving Republicans a “taste of their own medicine” during the Hunter Biden investigation


***
a taste of (one's) own medicine (redirected from taste of their own medicine)
a taste of (one's) own medicine
An experience of the same harmful or unpleasant thing that one has inflicted on others; an attack in the same manner in which one attacks others.
Doug is a bully—of course he won't like it when his victims fight back and give him a taste of his own medicine.
This team likes to play rough, so let's go out there and give them a taste of their own medicine!
The coup gave the dictatorship a dose of its own medicine, subjecting the dictator and his entourage to torture and confinement in deplorable conditions.
See also: medicine, of, own, taste
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
*a taste of one's own medicine and *a dose of one's own medicine
Fig. a sample of the unpleasantness that one has been giving other people. (Typically: get ~; have ~; give someone ~.) Now you see how it feels to have someone call you names! You are getting a taste of your own medicine! John, who is often rude and abrupt with people, was devastated when the teacher treated him rudely. He doesn't like having a dose of his own medicine.
See also: medicine, of, own, taste
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
own medicine, a dose/taste of one's
Repayment in kind; tit for tat. Although the idea is hardly new, the medicinal metaphor dates only from the late nineteenth century. V. Perdue used it in The Singing Clock (1941): “It was only fair for them to get a taste of their own medicine.”
See also: dose, of, own, taste
The Dictionary of Clich;s by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer
See also:
a dose of (one's) own medicine
a dose of your own medicine
a taste of own medicine
dose
dose of one's own medicine
get a dose of (one's) own medicine
get a taste of (one's) own medicine
bust on (one)
bust on someone/something
force out of office