Word.ws English Dictionary

covering one's bases

covering one's bases is the present participle and gerund of cover one's bases.

Meaning of cover one's bases

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)

  1. (idiomatic) To be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely.
    • She eats a balanced diet, but takes vitamin pills anyway, to cover her bases.

Questions about covering one's bases

What is covering one's bases the present participle and gerund of?
Covering one's bases is the present participle and gerund of cover one's bases.

Words near covering one's bases in the dictionary

  1. covering letter
  2. covering letters
  3. covering number
  4. covering numbers
  5. covering one's back
  6. covering one's bases
  7. covering one's feet
  8. covering one's tracks
  9. covering oneself in glory
  10. covering shorts
  11. covering sickness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: covering one's bases (page history and authors); 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:

Cite this entry: “covering one's bases.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/covering_one%27s_bases. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.