Word.ws English Dictionary

kiss someone's ring

Syllables: kiss some·one's ringUK/kɪs ˈsʌmwʌnz ɹɪŋ/

kiss someone's ring verb: to give respect or reverence to someone; to express servitude to someone.

kiss someone's ring: to give respect or reverence to someone; to express servitude to someone
Image: Centro Televisivo Vaticano, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

kiss someone's ring (third-person singular simple present kisses someone's ring, present participle kissing someone's ring, simple past and past participle kissed someone's ring)

  1. (idiomatic) To give respect or reverence to someone; to express servitude to someone.
    • The friendship had faltered during their first year at Oxford, when Barnaby had turned jester-in-chief to a pride of strutting young peacocks with titles and country estates. He had made them laugh and kissed their rings and they in return had sneered at him behind his back.2011, Mark Mills, chapter 9, in House of the Hanged, London: HarperCollins, →ISBN; House of the Hunted: A Novel, 1st U.S. edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 2011, →ISBN, page 106
    • "[…] We're taking over and running this industry. Every other label is gonna have to bow down." / "What about Mystique?" Dreya asks. "Is she gonna have to bow down too?" / "It's only a matter of time," Evan says. "If I don't do anything else in this industry, I'm gonna make sure that diva kisses...2012 November, Nikki Carter, chapter 15, in Time to Shine: A Fab Life Novel, New York, N.Y.: Dafina KTeen Books, Kensington Publishing Corp., →ISBN, page 147

Synonyms of kiss someone's ring

Forms of kiss someone's ring

third-person singular presentkisses someone's ring
present participlekissing someone's ring
past participlekissed someone's ring
pastkissed someone's ring
alternative formkiss the ring

Origin of kiss someone's ring

An allusion to a traditional manner of expressing obediance to a bishop (especially the pope) or king.

Questions about kiss someone's ring

What does kiss someone's ring mean?
Kiss someone's ring means to give respect or reverence to someone; to express servitude to someone.
What part of speech is kiss someone's ring?
Kiss someone's ring is a verb.
How do you pronounce kiss someone's ring?
Kiss someone's ring is pronounced /kɪs ˈsʌmwʌnz ɹɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the past tense of kiss someone's ring?
The past tense of kiss someone's ring is kissed someone's ring.

Words near kiss someone's ring in the dictionary

  1. KISS principle
  2. kiss someone on the dick
  3. kiss someone's arse
  4. kiss someone's ass
  5. kiss someone's hem
  6. kiss someone's ring
  7. kiss the book
  8. kiss the dust
  9. kiss the ground someone walks on
  10. kiss the gunner's daughter
  11. kiss the hem of someone's garment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kiss someone's ring (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-kiss someone's ring.ogg.

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