Word.ws English Dictionary

greases the wheels

greases the wheels is the third-person singular simple present indicative of grease the wheels.

Meaning of grease the wheels

Verb

grease the wheels (third-person singular simple present greases the wheels, present participle greasing the wheels, simple past and past participle greased the wheels)

  1. (idiomatic) To create conditions likely to produce or hasten favorable future developments.
    • Once a way of greasing the wheels of a gruesome bureaucracy, bribery has now become part of the cost of doing business.1992 March 14, Celestine Bohlen, “Corruption Grows Greedy in Russia”, in New York Times, retrieved 18 May 2014

Questions about greases the wheels

What is greases the wheels the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Greases the wheels is the third-person singular simple present indicative of grease the wheels.

Words near greases the wheels in the dictionary

  1. greases
  2. greases it on
  3. greases one's gills
  4. greases someone's palm
  5. greases the skids
  6. greases the wheels
  7. greases up
  8. greasest
  9. greaseth
  10. greasewood
  11. greasewoods

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: greases the wheels (page history and authors); grease the wheels (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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