cross that bridge when one comes to it
cross that bridge when one comes to it verb: to deal with a problem or situation only if and when it arises.
Verb
cross that bridge when one comes to it (third-person singular simple present crosses that bridge when one comes to it, present participle crossing that bridge when one comes to it, simple past and past participle crossed that bridge when one came to it)
- To deal with a problem or situation only if and when it arises.
- It's possible we'll eventually have more books than available space for them, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
- They might be willing to admit, OK, yeah, if you invent superintelligence, things will probably be crazy. But I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.2025 April 11, Kevin Roose, Casey Newton, “Big Tech’s Tariff Chaos + A.I. 2027 + Llama Drama”, in The New York Times (Hard Fork podcast), →ISSN
Antonyms of cross that bridge when one comes to it
Forms of cross that bridge when one comes to it
| third-person singular present | crosses that bridge when one comes to it |
|---|---|
| present participle | crossing that bridge when one comes to it |
| past participle | crossed that bridge when one came to it |
| past | crossed that bridge when one came to it |
| alternative form | cross that bridge when one gets there |
| alternative form | cross that bridge when one gets to it |
Origin of cross that bridge when one comes to it
A metaphor for an idea being like a train of thought and the problem being like the bridge.
Words formed from cross that bridge when one comes to it
Questions about cross that bridge when one comes to it
- What does cross that bridge when one comes to it mean?
- Cross that bridge when one comes to it means to deal with a problem or situation only if and when it arises.
- What part of speech is cross that bridge when one comes to it?
- Cross that bridge when one comes to it is a verb.
- What is the past tense of cross that bridge when one comes to it?
- The past tense of cross that bridge when one comes to it is crossed that bridge when one came to it.
Words near cross that bridge when one comes to it in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cross that bridge when one comes to it (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-cross that bridge when one comes to it.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cross that bridge when one comes to it.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cross_that_bridge_when_one_comes_to_it. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.