Word.ws English Dictionary

fill someone's shoes

fill someone's shoes verb: to do (somebody's) job; to perform or assume (somebody's) role.

Verb

fill someone's shoes (third-person singular simple present fills someone's shoes, present participle filling someone's shoes, simple past and past participle filled someone's shoes)

  1. (idiomatic) To do (somebody's) job; to perform or assume (somebody's) role.
    • I don't think anyone could ever fill her shoes, doing all she does.
    • You have some very large shoes to fill. I hope you know that.2006, Aline Brosh McKenna, Lauren Weisberger, The Devil Wears Prada, spoken by Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt)

Synonyms of fill someone's shoes

Forms of fill someone's shoes

third-person singular presentfills someone's shoes
present participlefilling someone's shoes
past participlefilled someone's shoes
pastfilled someone's shoes

Questions about fill someone's shoes

What does fill someone's shoes mean?
Fill someone's shoes means to do (somebody's) job; to perform or assume (somebody's) role.
What part of speech is fill someone's shoes?
Fill someone's shoes is a verb.
What is the past tense of fill someone's shoes?
The past tense of fill someone's shoes is filled someone's shoes.

Words near fill someone's shoes in the dictionary

  1. fill out
  2. fill site
  3. fill soil
  4. fill soils
  5. fill someone's boots
  6. fill someone's shoes
  7. fill the bill
  8. fill up
  9. fill'd
  10. fill-dike
  11. fill-dyke

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fill someone's shoes (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-fill someone's shoes.ogg.

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