leave someone to their own devices

present singular third person leaves someone to their own devices · participle present leaving someone to their own devices · participle past left someone to their own devices · past left someone to their own devices

1. idiomatictransitiveto leave alone, unsupervised, without assistance.

   Let's leave her to her own devices and see what she comes up with.

   3 more examples

   Left to my own devices, I'll spend hours staring into space, just thinking.

   ‘Forgive me,’ he said to the girl, ‘while I telephone to the Dubernes. I must arrange my rendezvous for dinner tonight. Are you sure you won't mind being left to your own devices this evening?’

   1953, Ian Fleming, Casino Royale, page 32

   But surely one of the most often-heard complaints this past year or so, not only from passengers and traders, but from many of these selfsame railwaymen, is that the latter are left too much to their own devices to sort out their problems as best they can; [...].

   1963 February, “Nobody runs this railway, mate”, in Modern Railways, page 75