Word.ws English Dictionary

bringing up the rear

bringing up the rear is the present participle and gerund of bring up the rear.

Meaning of bring up the rear

Verb

bring up the rear (third-person singular simple present brings up the rear, present participle bringing up the rear, simple past and past participle brought up the rear)

  1. (idiomatic) To be last in a moving line of people, to walk or go behind others in a line.
    • As for the guides, they were debarred from the pleasure of discourse, the one being placed in the van, and the other obliged to bring up the rear.1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC
    Antonyms:
    lead the way

Questions about bringing up the rear

What is bringing up the rear the present participle and gerund of?
Bringing up the rear is the present participle and gerund of bring up the rear.

Words near bringing up the rear in the dictionary

  1. bringing together
  2. bringing under
  3. bringing up
  4. bringing up against
  5. bringing up short
  6. bringing up the rear
  7. bringing up to
  8. bringing upon
  9. bringing with
  10. bringings
  11. brings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bringing up the rear (page history and authors); bring up the rear (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bringing up the rear.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bringing_up_the_rear. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.