put one's name in the hat
put one's name in the hat verb: to run in an election or to nominate oneself for consideration in some other selection process; to nominate someone other than oneself for such consideration.
Verb
put one's name in the hat (third-person singular simple present puts one's name in the hat, present participle putting one's name in the hat, simple past and past participle put one's name in the hat)
- To run in an election or to nominate oneself for consideration in some other selection process; to nominate someone other than oneself for such consideration.
- [H]e would not embarrass his friends by running. So they rose up and put his name in the hat—which is exactly what I expected them to do.1996, Lillian Smith, edited by Margaret Rose Gladney, How Am I to Be Heard?: Letters of Lillian Smith, →ISBN, page 118
- "Most students now think to themselves: ‘How can I not apply to Yale?’" he said. "You just have to put your name in the hat."2006 May 14, Brian Wise, “A Free Ride at Yale? Where Do I Sign Up?”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Jun 2011
- Synonyms:
- throw one's hat in the ring
Synonyms of put one's name in the hat
Forms of put one's name in the hat
| third-person singular present | puts one's name in the hat |
|---|---|
| present participle | putting one's name in the hat |
| past participle | put one's name in the hat |
| past | put one's name in the hat |
| alternative form | throw one's name in the hat |
| alternative form | toss one's name in the hat |
Origin of put one's name in the hat
From the informal practice of putting ballots into a hat, and then drawing a single ballot from the hat at random to decide the winner. When one put one's own name on a ballot in the hat, one would therefore be eligible to win.
Questions about put one's name in the hat
- What does put one's name in the hat mean?
- Put one's name in the hat means to run in an election or to nominate oneself for consideration in some other selection process; to nominate someone other than oneself for such consideration.
- What part of speech is put one's name in the hat?
- Put one's name in the hat is a verb.
- What is the past tense of put one's name in the hat?
- The past tense of put one's name in the hat is put one's name in the hat.
Words near put one's name in the hat in the dictionary
- put one's household in order
- put one's legs under someone's mahogany
- put one's mind to it
- put one's money where one's mouth is
- put one's money where one's mouth was
- put one's name in the hat
- put one's neck out
- put one's oar in
- put one's own oxygen mask on first
- put one's oxygen mask on first
- put one's pants on one leg at a time
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: put one's name in the hat (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-put one's name in the hat.ogg.
Cite this entry: “put one's name in the hat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_one%27s_name_in_the_hat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.