Word.ws English Dictionary

in the driver's seat

in the driver's seat prepositional phrase: having the most important role in a storyline or recognition; of primary importance.

Prepositional phrase

in the driver's seat

  1. (idiomatic) Having the most important role in a storyline or recognition; of primary importance.
  2. (idiomatic) In control of an entity or situation.
    • That can increase efficiency (when the suggestion is indeed what you had in mind) and spark new ideas (when the suggestion isn’t quite what you had in mind), while keeping the human user in the driver’s seat.2025 June 24, Tim Wu, “A.I. Doesn’t Have to Mean a ‘White-Collar Blood Bath’ of Job Loss”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 24 Jun 2025

Antonyms of in the driver's seat

Forms of in the driver's seat

alternative formin the driving seat

Questions about in the driver's seat

What does in the driver's seat mean?
In the driver's seat means having the most important role in a storyline or recognition; of primary importance.
What part of speech is in the driver's seat?
In the driver's seat is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in the driver's seat in the dictionary

  1. in the distance
  2. in the dock
  3. in the dogbox
  4. in the doghouse
  5. in the drink
  6. in the driver's seat
  7. in the driving seat
  8. in the dumps
  9. in the ear
  10. in the end
  11. in the event

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in the driver's seat (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-in the driver's seat.ogg.

Cite this entry: “in the driver's seat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_the_driver%27s_seat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.