cover one's bases
cover one's bases verb: to be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely.
Verb
cover one's bases (third-person singular simple present covers one's bases, present participle covering one's bases, simple past and past participle covered one's bases)
- To be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely.
- She eats a balanced diet, but takes vitamin pills anyway, to cover her bases.
Forms of cover one's bases
| third-person singular present | covers one's bases |
|---|---|
| present participle | covering one's bases |
| past participle | covered one's bases |
| past | covered one's bases |
| alternative form | cover all of one's bases |
| alternative form | cover all the bases |
| alternative form | cover the bases |
Origin of cover one's bases
From the rules of baseball, where the defending team needs to assign an infielder to each of the three outward-facing bases.
Questions about cover one's bases
- What does cover one's bases mean?
- Cover one's bases means to be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely.
- What part of speech is cover one's bases?
- Cover one's bases is a verb.
- What is the past tense of cover one's bases?
- The past tense of cover one's bases is covered one's bases.
Words near cover one's bases in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cover one's bases (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-cover one's bases.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cover one's bases.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cover_one%27s_bases. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.