Word.ws English Dictionary

kiss up, kick down

kiss up, kick down adjective: inclined to be polite to one's superiors and abusive to one's subordinates.

Adjective

kiss up, kick down (not comparable)

  1. Inclined to be polite to one's superiors and abusive to one's subordinates.

Questions about kiss up, kick down

What does kiss up, kick down mean?
Kiss up, kick down means inclined to be polite to one's superiors and abusive to one's subordinates.
What part of speech is kiss up, kick down?
Kiss up, kick down is an adjective.

Words near kiss up, kick down in the dictionary

  1. kiss the hem of someone's garment
  2. kiss the ring
  3. kiss the rod
  4. kiss up
  5. kiss up to
  6. kiss up, kick down
  7. kiss your sister
  8. kiss'd
  9. kiss, cuddle or torture
  10. kiss-and-tell
  11. kiss-ass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kiss up, kick 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “kiss up, kick down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kiss_up%2C_kick_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.