Word.ws English Dictionary

having the drop on

having the drop on is the present participle and gerund of have the drop on.

Meaning of have the drop on

Verb

have the drop on (third-person singular simple present has the drop on, present participle having the drop on, simple past and past participle had the drop on)

  1. (broadly, informal, transitive) To possess an advantage over another person, by acting before that person.
    • They had the drop on us and I had the feeling normally associated with nakedness. But they did not seem keen to take the plunge.1996, Jim Burtt-Smith, John French, A Drop in the Ocean: Dramatic Accounts of Aircrew Saved From the Sea, Pen and Sword, →ISBN, page 22

Questions about having the drop on

What is having the drop on the present participle and gerund of?
Having the drop on is the present participle and gerund of have the drop on.

Words near having the drop on in the dictionary

  1. having the blues
  2. having the cards
  3. having the cards in one's hands
  4. having the dirts with
  5. having the drains up
  6. having the drop on
  7. having the first idea
  8. having the floor
  9. having the heart
  10. having the hots for
  11. having the last laugh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: having the drop on (page history and authors); have the drop on (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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Cite this entry: “having the drop on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/having_the_drop_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.