Word.ws English Dictionary

in the driving seat

in the driving seat is the alternative form of in the driver's seat.

Meaning of in the driver's seat

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

Questions about in the driving seat

What is in the driving seat the alternative form of?
In the driving seat is the alternative form of in the driver's seat.

Words near in the driving seat in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in the driving seat (page history and authors); 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 driving seat.ogg.

Cite this entry: “in the driving seat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_the_driving_seat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.