Word.ws English Dictionary

falling on a grenade

falling on a grenade is the present participle and gerund of fall on a grenade.

Meaning of fall on a grenade

Verb

fall on a grenade (third-person singular simple present falls on a grenade, present participle falling on a grenade, simple past fell on a grenade, past participle fallen on a grenade)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To sacrifice oneself for the sake of others.
    • Another longtime Gore adviser says: "Nobody would fall on a grenade for him. People respect him but don't love him. He just doesn't inspire that kind of loyalty."2000, U.S. News & World Report, volume 129, numbers 1-8, page 99

Questions about falling on a grenade

What is falling on a grenade the present participle and gerund of?
Falling on a grenade is the present participle and gerund of fall on a grenade.

Words near falling on a grenade in the dictionary

  1. falling off the turnip truck
  2. falling off the twig
  3. falling off the ugly tree
  4. falling off the wagon
  5. falling on
  6. falling on a grenade
  7. falling on deaf ears
  8. falling on hard times
  9. falling on one's face
  10. falling on one's sword
  11. falling on someone's neck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: falling on a grenade (page history and authors); fall on a grenade (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: “falling on a grenade.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/falling_on_a_grenade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.