Word.ws English Dictionary

putting the cart before the horse

putting the cart before the horse is the present participle and gerund of put the cart before the horse.

Meaning of put the cart before the horse

Verb

put the cart before the horse (third-person singular simple present puts the cart before the horse, present participle putting the cart before the horse, simple past and past participle put the cart before the horse)

  1. (idiomatic) To put things in the wrong order or with the wrong priorities; to put something inconsequential as more important than something more essential.
    • The hour had struck; and with it, as always, appeared the man. So it has ever been in the history of the world; though we, with characteristic vanity, uniformly put the cart before the horse, and declare that it is the man that brings the hour.1898, Julian Hawthorne, chapter 1, in The History of the United States

Questions about putting the cart before the horse

What is putting the cart before the horse the present participle and gerund of?
Putting the cart before the horse is the present participle and gerund of put the cart before the horse.

Words near putting the cart before the horse in the dictionary

  1. putting the bite on
  2. putting the boot in
  3. putting the bottom rail on top
  4. putting the brakes on
  5. putting the cabosh on
  6. putting the cart before the horse
  7. putting the case
  8. putting the cat among the pigeons
  9. putting the change on someone
  10. putting the clock back
  11. putting the clock forward

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putting the cart before the horse (page history and authors); put the cart before the horse (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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