Word.ws English Dictionary

cut down the tall poppy

cut down the tall poppy verb: to belittle or undermine someone who is perceived as superior or more successful and accomplished.

Verb

cut down the tall poppy (third-person singular simple present cuts down the tall poppy, present participle cutting down the tall poppy, simple past and past participle cut down the tall poppy)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To belittle or undermine someone who is perceived as superior or more successful and accomplished.

Forms of cut down the tall poppy

third-person singular presentcuts down the tall poppy
present participlecutting down the tall poppy
past participlecut down the tall poppy
pastcut down the tall poppy

Questions about cut down the tall poppy

What does cut down the tall poppy mean?
Cut down the tall poppy means to belittle or undermine someone who is perceived as superior or more successful and accomplished.
What part of speech is cut down the tall poppy?
Cut down the tall poppy is a verb.
What is the past tense of cut down the tall poppy?
The past tense of cut down the tall poppy is cut down the tall poppy.

Words near cut down the tall poppy in the dictionary

  1. cut class
  2. cut corners
  3. cut crease
  4. cut deeper than a knife
  5. cut down
  6. cut down the tall poppy
  7. cut down to size
  8. cut fastball
  9. cut fastballs
  10. cut for sign
  11. cut from the same cloth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut down the tall poppy (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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