Word.ws English Dictionary

puts the bottom rail on top

puts the bottom rail on top is the third-person singular simple present indicative of put the bottom rail on top.

Meaning of put the bottom rail on top

Verb

put the bottom rail on top (third-person singular simple present puts the bottom rail on top, present participle putting the bottom rail on top, simple past and past participle put the bottom rail on top)

  1. (idiomatic) To reverse a hierarchy.
    • “The nigger Professor” they called me, “with a plan to educate the blacks and to put them above the whites”; “to put the bottom rail on top”; “to subvert Anglo‐Saxon civilization.”1906–1909, Walter Hines Page, The Southerner, a Novel, Doubleday, Page & Company, page 253

Questions about puts the bottom rail on top

What is puts the bottom rail on top the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Puts the bottom rail on top is the third-person singular simple present indicative of put the bottom rail on top.

Words near puts the bottom rail on top in the dictionary

  1. puts the bad mouth on
  2. puts the bee on
  3. puts the beggar on the gentleman
  4. puts the bite on
  5. puts the boot in
  6. puts the bottom rail on top
  7. puts the brakes on
  8. puts the cabosh on
  9. puts the cart before the horse
  10. puts the case
  11. puts the cat among the pigeons

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: puts the bottom rail on top (page history and authors); put the bottom rail on top (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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