Word.ws English Dictionary

rested on one's laurels

rested on one's laurels is the simple past and past participle of rest on one's laurels.

Meaning of rest on one's laurels

Verb

rest on one's laurels (third-person singular simple present rests on one's laurels, present participle resting on one's laurels, simple past and past participle rested on one's laurels)

  1. (idiomatic) To rely on a past success instead of trying to improve oneself further.
    • "Rail has a good basis for promoting green travel options, but we can't rest on our laurels. We need to keep on moving forwards because other modes are upping their games as well," says Brennan-Brown.2020 December 16, Daniel Puddicombe, “Treated DMUs become cleaner and greener”, in Rail, page 47

Questions about rested on one's laurels

What is rested on one's laurels the simple past and past participle of?
Rested on one's laurels is the simple past and past participle of rest on one's laurels.

Words near rested on one's laurels in the dictionary

  1. rested and vested
  2. rested assured
  3. rested easy
  4. rested in peace
  5. rested on
  6. rested on one's laurels
  7. rested one's case
  8. rested one's soul
  9. rested up
  10. rested upon
  11. restedness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rested on one's laurels (page history and authors); rest on one's laurels (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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Cite this entry: “rested on one's laurels.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rested_on_one%27s_laurels. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.