Citations:hostage to fortune


 * 1)  An action, promise, or remark that is considered unwise because it could be difficult to fulfil or could cause trouble later on.
 * 2) * 1837, Francis Joseph Grund, The Americans, in Their Moral, Social and Political Relations, page 169, Marsh, Capen and Lyon
 * Thus, a married man will be sooner trusted than one who is single; because “he has given hostage to fortune,” and possesses what Bacon calls “an impediment to mischief.”
 * Quotation of the 17th-century work by Francis Bacon already in the entry.