Word.ws English Dictionary

put one's ducks in a row

put one's ducks in a row is the alternative form of have one's ducks in a row.

Meaning of have one's ducks in a row

Verb

have one's ducks in a row (third-person singular simple present has one's ducks in a row, present participle having one's ducks in a row, simple past and past participle had one's ducks in a row)

  1. (idiomatic) To be organized; to have one's affairs in order; specifically, to have a multiperson effort coordinated towards the exact same goal.
    • Wouldn't it be nice to have our ducks in a row and not have to search for the papers every time we needed them?

Forms of put one's ducks in a row

third-person singular presentputs one's ducks in a row
present participleputting one's ducks in a row
past participleput one's ducks in a row
pastput one's ducks in a row

Questions about put one's ducks in a row

What is put one's ducks in a row the alternative form of?
Put one's ducks in a row is the alternative form of have one's ducks in a row.

Words near put one's ducks in a row in the dictionary

  1. put one's ass on the line
  2. put one's back into
  3. put one's best foot foremost
  4. put one's best foot forward
  5. put one's cards on the table
  6. put one's ducks in a row
  7. put one's feet up
  8. put one's finger in a hole
  9. put one's finger in the dyke
  10. put one's finger in the fire
  11. put one's finger on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put one's ducks in a row (page history and authors); have one's ducks in a row (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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