pull the rug out from under
pull the rug out from under verb: to suddenly remove support from.
Verb
pull the rug out from under (third-person singular simple present pulls the rug out from under, present participle pulling the rug out from under, simple past and past participle pulled the rug out from under)
- To suddenly remove support from.
- But his organisation has been knocked off course by unexpected events: an economic downturn and 'austerity'... the Croydon tram crash... Brexit... and now a global pandemic that has pulled the rug from beneath Transport for London's feet.2020 July 15, Mike Brown talks to Paul Clifton, “Leading London's "hidden heroes"”, in Rail, page 42
Forms of pull the rug out from under
| third-person singular present | pulls the rug out from under |
|---|---|
| present participle | pulling the rug out from under |
| past participle | pulled the rug out from under |
| past | pulled the rug out from under |
Words formed from pull the rug out from under
Questions about pull the rug out from under
- What does pull the rug out from under mean?
- Pull the rug out from under means to suddenly remove support from.
- What part of speech is pull the rug out from under?
- Pull the rug out from under is a verb.
- What is the past tense of pull the rug out from under?
- The past tense of pull the rug out from under is pulled the rug out from under.
Words near pull the rug out from under in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pull the rug out from under (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-pull the rug out from under.ogg.
Cite this entry: “pull the rug out from under.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pull_the_rug_out_from_under. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.