Word.ws English Dictionary

putting the bottom rail on top

putting the bottom rail on top is the present participle and gerund 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 putting the bottom rail on top

What is putting the bottom rail on top the present participle and gerund of?
Putting the bottom rail on top is the present participle and gerund of put the bottom rail on top.

Words near putting the bottom rail on top in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putting 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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