Word.ws English Dictionary

has a tiger by the tail

has a tiger by the tail is the third-person singular simple present indicative of have a tiger by the tail.

Meaning of have a tiger by the tail

Verb

have a tiger by the tail (third-person singular simple present has a tiger by the tail, present participle having a tiger by the tail, simple past and past participle had a 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.
    • "Sounds like you have a tiger by the tail. Hawthorne won't go down without a battle and will probably sue you if he wins," Clair admonished.2009, Jack Dalton, A Country Lawyer, Strategic Book Publishing, →ISBN, page 75

Questions about has a tiger by the tail

What is has a tiger by the tail the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Has a tiger by the tail is the third-person singular simple present indicative of have a tiger by the tail.

Words near has a tiger by the tail in the dictionary

  1. has a stab
  2. has a tantrum
  3. has a thick head
  4. has a thin time of it
  5. has a thing going on
  6. has a tiger by the tail
  7. has a time
  8. has a time of it
  9. has a turtle's head
  10. has a visual on
  11. has a way with

Source and license

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