Word.ws English Dictionary

had the tiger by the tail

had the tiger by the tail is the simple past and past participle of have the tiger by the tail.

Meaning of have the tiger by the tail

Verb

have the tiger by the tail (third-person singular simple present has the tiger by the tail, present participle having the tiger by the tail, simple past and past participle had the tiger by the tail)

  1. (idiomatic) To be in a difficult or dangerous situation in which one ideally should not remain, but from which one cannot withdraw.
    • "We have the tiger by the tail," Paul whispered. "We can't go down, can't land…and I don't think I can lift us out of this. We'll have to ride it out."1965 October 1, Frank Herbert, “Book II: Muad’Dib”, in Dune, Philadelphia, Pa.: Chilton Book Company; [Toronto], Ont.: Thomas Nelson & Sons, →OCLC, page 225

Questions about had the tiger by the tail

What is had the tiger by the tail the simple past and past participle of?
Had the tiger by the tail is the simple past and past participle of have the tiger by the tail.

Words near had the tiger by the tail in the dictionary

  1. had the painters in
  2. had the pas of someone
  3. had the pleasure
  4. had the right time
  5. had the sun in one's eyes
  6. had the tiger by the tail
  7. had the wind up
  8. had the wolf by the ear
  9. had the world by the bag
  10. had the world by the balls
  11. had the world by the neck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: had the tiger by the tail (page history and authors); have the tiger by the tail (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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