Word.ws English Dictionary

have one's foot in the door

have one's foot in the door verb: to have an advantage or upper hand in something.

Verb

have one's foot in the door (third-person singular simple present has one's foot in the door, present participle having one's foot in the door, simple past and past participle had one's foot in the door)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To have an advantage or upper hand in something.

Forms of have one's foot in the door

third-person singular presenthas one's foot in the door
present participlehaving one's foot in the door
past participlehad one's foot in the door
pasthad one's foot in the door
alternative formhave a foot in the door

Questions about have one's foot in the door

What does have one's foot in the door mean?
Have one's foot in the door means to have an advantage or upper hand in something.
What part of speech is have one's foot in the door?
Have one's foot in the door is a verb.
What is the past tense of have one's foot in the door?
The past tense of have one's foot in the door is had one's foot in the door.

Words near have one's foot in the door in the dictionary

  1. have one's finger on the trigger
  2. have one's fingers all thumbs
  3. have one's fingers in many pies
  4. have one's fingers in the till
  5. have one's fingers on the pulse
  6. have one's foot in the door
  7. have one's guard up
  8. have one's hand in the till
  9. have one's hand out
  10. have one's handful
  11. have one's hands full

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: have one's foot in the door (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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