Word.ws English Dictionary

pull the ladder up behind oneself

pull the ladder up behind oneself verb: to prevent others from attaining or benefiting from the same advantages, opportunities, or rights as oneself.

Verb

pull the ladder up behind oneself (third-person singular simple present pulls the ladder up behind oneself, present participle pulling the ladder up behind oneself, simple past and past participle pulled the ladder up behind oneself)

  1. (idiomatic) To prevent others from attaining or benefiting from the same advantages, opportunities, or rights as oneself.
    • Near-synonym: pull up the drawbridge
    • The odds are that, after the first flush of enthusiasm, a non-proliferation treaty is going to look to many of the have-nots like a device for letting Russia and America scramble on top of their nuclear piles and then pull the ladder up behind them.1965 July 24, “Shall We Non-Proliferate?”, in The Economist, page 313

Synonyms of pull the ladder up behind oneself

Forms of pull the ladder up behind oneself

third-person singular presentpulls the ladder up behind oneself
present participlepulling the ladder up behind oneself
past participlepulled the ladder up behind oneself
pastpulled the ladder up behind oneself

Origin of pull the ladder up behind oneself

Coined by analogy with phrases such as make it to the top and climb the ladder that liken success to an upward struggle.

Questions about pull the ladder up behind oneself

What does pull the ladder up behind oneself mean?
Pull the ladder up behind oneself means to prevent others from attaining or benefiting from the same advantages, opportunities, or rights as oneself.
What part of speech is pull the ladder up behind oneself?
Pull the ladder up behind oneself is a verb.
What is the past tense of pull the ladder up behind oneself?
The past tense of pull the ladder up behind oneself is pulled the ladder up behind oneself.

Words near pull the ladder up behind oneself in the dictionary

  1. pull the devil by the tail
  2. pull the fat out of the fire
  3. pull the fire alarm
  4. pull the football
  5. pull the ladder up after oneself
  6. pull the ladder up behind oneself
  7. pull the long bow
  8. pull the other leg
  9. pull the other one
  10. pull the other one, it's got bells on
  11. pull the other one, it's got brass bells on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pull the ladder up behind oneself (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-pull the ladder up behind oneself.wav.

Cite this entry: “pull the ladder up behind oneself.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pull_the_ladder_up_behind_oneself. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.