Word.ws English Dictionary

on one's toes

on one's toes prepositional phrase: attentive, active, busy or alert.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Attentive, active, busy or alert.
    • I keep my students on their toes with pop quizzes.

Words formed from on one's toes

Questions about on one's toes

What does on one's toes mean?
On one's toes means attentive, active, busy or alert.
What part of speech is on one's toes?
On one's toes is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on one's toes in the dictionary

  1. on one's plate
  2. on one's Ps
  3. on one's side
  4. on one's tod
  5. on one's todd
  6. on one's toes
  7. on one's uppers
  8. on one's watch
  9. on one's way
  10. on ones
  11. on opposite sides of the barricades

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on one's toes (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-on one's toes.ogg.

Cite this entry: “on one's toes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/on_one%27s_toes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.