Word.ws English Dictionary

pulling the rug out from under

pulling the rug out from under is the present participle and gerund of pull the rug out from under.

Meaning of pull the rug out from under

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)

  1. (idiomatic) 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

Questions about pulling the rug out from under

What is pulling the rug out from under the present participle and gerund of?
Pulling the rug out from under is the present participle and gerund of pull the rug out from under.

Words near pulling the rug out from under in the dictionary

  1. pulling the long bow
  2. pulling the other leg
  3. pulling the pin
  4. pulling the plug
  5. pulling the rug
  6. pulling the rug out from under
  7. pulling the shutters down
  8. pulling the string
  9. pulling the trigger
  10. pulling the wires
  11. pulling the wool over someone's eyes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulling the rug out from under (page history and authors); 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.

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Cite this entry: “pulling the rug out from under.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pulling_the_rug_out_from_under. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.