Word.ws English Dictionary

putting a hat on a hat

putting a hat on a hat is the present participle and gerund of put a hat on a hat.

Meaning of put a hat on a hat

Verb

put a hat on a hat (third-person singular simple present puts a hat on a hat, present participle putting a hat on a hat, simple past and past participle put a hat on a hat)

  1. (idiomatic) To do something unnecessary, to go over the top
    • "You don't need to put a hat on a hat.” He was saying: If you comment on it, you kill it. If there's a hat already on your head, why in God's name would you put another hat on top of it? The audience doesn't like to see you wink.2017 May 16, Jeffrey Tambor, Are You Anybody?: A Memoir, Crown Archetype, →ISBN

Questions about putting a hat on a hat

What is putting a hat on a hat the present participle and gerund of?
Putting a hat on a hat is the present participle and gerund of put a hat on a hat.

Words near putting a hat on a hat in the dictionary

  1. putting a crimp in
  2. putting a damper on
  3. putting a dent in the universe
  4. putting a foot wrong
  5. putting a gun to someone's head
  6. putting a hat on a hat
  7. putting a hurt on
  8. putting a lid on
  9. putting a lid on it
  10. putting a name to
  11. putting a pin in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putting a hat on a hat (page history and authors); put a hat on a 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.

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