Word.ws English Dictionary

name dropping

name dropping is the present participle and gerund of name drop Alternative spelling of name-dropping.

name dropping is the alternative form of name-dropping.

Meaning of name-dropping

Noun

name-dropping (countable and uncountable, plural name-droppings)

  1. The practice of casually mentioning famous or important people or the titles of their works, subtly implying familiarity or association, in order to impress others.
    • “The one thing I don't want anybody to do, the one thing I will not tolerate, is name-dropping. It's bad. Marlon Brando told me that.”1997, Chris Chase, Name Dropping, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 14
    Synonyms:
    name-checking

Forms of name dropping

pluralname droppings

Questions about name dropping

What is name dropping the present participle and gerund of?
Name dropping is the present participle and gerund of name drop Alternative spelling of name-dropping.

Words near name dropping in the dictionary

  1. name days
  2. name drop
  3. name dropped
  4. name dropper
  5. name droppers
  6. name dropping
  7. name droppings
  8. name drops
  9. name for
  10. name it, claim it
  11. name names

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: name dropping (page history and authors); name-dropping (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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Cite this entry: “name dropping.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/name_dropping. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.