push and shove
push and shove verb: to use one's strength to force oneself through a crowded area.
Verb
push and shove (third-person singular simple present pushes and shoves, present participle pushing and shoving, simple past and past participle pushed and shoved)
- To use one's strength to force oneself through a crowded area.
- He pushed and shoved his way to the stage to steal the microphone from the singer.
- No student of modern warfare can observe the increasing facilities of transporting live animals in large numbers over long sea distances—which have been created by the push and shove rivalry of peaceful commercial competition—without reflecting how means so afforded can be turned to account in war.1880, John Charles Ready Colomb, The Defence of Great and Greater Britain, Edward Stanford, pages 190–191
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see push, shove.
Noun
push and shove (uncountable)
- Inconsiderate and unregulated behaviour.
- Synonyms:
- hurlyburly, rough-and-tumble
Examples of push and shove in a sentence
- In the push and shove of this day, enter my life and help me know that you are coming to meet me at every point of need.2012 December 3, Max Lucado, Life to the Full, Thomas Nelson, page 16:
- Gloria had always been more suited to the push and shove of the business world.2014 February, Charles Wallman, A Life of Leathergy, Lulu.com, page 20:
- Mature souls tend to gravitate to a calm environment, they prefer the relative tranquillity of the suburbs to the push and shove of a large City.2015 September 5, Carl Dourish, Time In Time, Past Life Regression, Lulu.com, unpaged
- The distinctive noises and smells of each street, along with the push and shove of traders, pilgrims, clerics and soldiers, made for an energised community that impressed contemporary tourists2019, Jonathan Phillips, The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin, Yale University Press, page 28:
Synonyms of push and shove
Forms of push and shove
| third-person singular present | pushes and shoves |
|---|---|
| present participle | pushing and shoving |
| past participle | pushed and shoved |
| past | pushed and shoved |
Questions about push and shove
- What does push and shove mean?
- Push and shove means to use one's strength to force oneself through a crowded area.
- How do you use push and shove in a sentence?
- In the push and shove of this day, enter my life and help me know that you are coming to meet me at every point of need.
- What part of speech is push and shove?
- Push and shove can be a verb or a noun.
- What is the past tense of push and shove?
- The past tense of push and shove is pushed and shoved.
Words near push and shove in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: push and shove (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: “push and shove.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/push_and_shove. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.