Word.ws English Dictionary

having a tiger by the tail

having a tiger by the tail is the present participle and gerund 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 having a tiger by the tail

What is having a tiger by the tail the present participle and gerund of?
Having a tiger by the tail is the present participle and gerund of have a tiger by the tail.

Words near having a tiger by the tail in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: having 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “having a tiger by the tail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/having_a_tiger_by_the_tail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.