Word.ws English Dictionary

kicking a dog when it's down

kicking a dog when it's down is the present participle and gerund of kick a dog when it's down.

Meaning of kick a dog when it's down

Verb

kick a dog when it's down (third-person singular simple present kicks a dog when it's down, present participle kicking a dog when it's down, simple past and past participle kicked a dog when it was down)

  1. (idiomatic) To make things worse for someone in an adverse situation.
    • but we learned for the first time last Monday night that the Atalantas would kick a dog when he's down. We were beaten ten pins; of course the At-A-lantas (as Spark puts it) will claim one hundred and ten, but the hundred were felled by Miller jumping on the alleys.1891, The Wheel and Cycling Trade Review, volume 6

Questions about kicking a dog when it's down

What is kicking a dog when it's down the present participle and gerund of?
Kicking a dog when it's down is the present participle and gerund of kick a dog when it's down.

Words near kicking a dog when it's down in the dictionary

  1. kickier
  2. kickiest
  3. kickin'
  4. kickiness
  5. kicking
  6. kicking a dog when it's down
  7. kicking about
  8. kicking against
  9. kicking against the pricks
  10. kicking and screaming
  11. kicking around

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kicking a dog when it's down (page history and authors); kick a dog when it's down (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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