Word.ws English Dictionary

push the envelope

Syllables: push the en·ve·lopeUK/ˌpʊʃ ðiː ˈɛnvələʊp/US/ˌpʊʃ ði ˈɛnvəˌloʊp/

push the envelope verb: to go beyond established limits; to pioneer.

Verb

push the envelope (third-person singular simple present pushes the envelope, present participle pushing the envelope, simple past and past participle pushed the envelope)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To go beyond established limits; to pioneer.
    • They pushed the envelope on pricing derivatives.
    • Aerial photography was coming into its own, and flying shutterbugs pushed the envelope, striving to outsnap each other.1992, Popular Mechanics, volume 169, number 11, page 18

Synonyms of push the envelope

Forms of push the envelope

third-person singular presentpushes the envelope
present participlepushing the envelope
past participlepushed the envelope
pastpushed the envelope

Origin of push the envelope

From push (“to continually exert oneself in order to achieve a goal”) + the + envelope (“set of limitations within which a technological system can perform safely and effectively”) (compare flight envelope), referring to the boundary line on a graph of an aircraft’s capabilities, especially those of altitude and speed. The term was popularized by the book The Right Stuff (1979) by the American author and journalist Tom Wolfe (1930–2018) about the pilots engaged in United States postwar research with experimental rocket-powered, high-speed aircraft, and the first Project Mercury astronauts selected for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s human spaceflight program.

Questions about push the envelope

What does push the envelope mean?
Push the envelope means to go beyond established limits; to pioneer.
What part of speech is push the envelope?
Push the envelope is a verb.
How do you pronounce push the envelope?
Push the envelope is pronounced /ˌpʊʃ ðiː ˈɛnvələʊp/ (UK).
What is the past tense of push the envelope?
The past tense of push the envelope is pushed the envelope.

Words near push the envelope in the dictionary

  1. push shots
  2. push someone's buttons
  3. push string uphill
  4. push the boat out
  5. push the edge of the envelope
  6. push the envelope
  7. push the limit
  8. push the right buttons
  9. push through
  10. push time
  11. push times

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: push the envelope (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-push the envelope.ogg.

Cite this entry: “push the envelope.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/push_the_envelope. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.