Word.ws English Dictionary

ride on a rail

ride on a rail verb: to be subjected to a punishment most prevalent in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries in which an offender was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two or more bearers. The victim was then paraded around town or taken to the city limits and dumped by the roadside.

Verb

ride on a rail (third-person singular simple present rides on a rail, present participle riding on a rail, simple past rode on a rail, past participle ridden on a rail)

  1. (historical, idiomatic) To be subjected to a punishment most prevalent in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries in which an offender was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two or more bearers. The victim was then paraded around town or taken to the city limits and dumped by the roadside.
    • ...they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, and then run me down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast--I warn't hungry.1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XIX, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC

Forms of ride on a rail

third-person singular presentrides on a rail
present participleriding on a rail
pastrode on a rail
past participleridden on a rail

Questions about ride on a rail

What does ride on a rail mean?
Ride on a rail means to be subjected to a punishment most prevalent in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries in which an offender was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two or more bearers. The victim was then paraded around town or taken to the city limits and dumped by the roadside.
What part of speech is ride on a rail?
Ride on a rail is a verb.
What is the past tense of ride on a rail?
The past tense of ride on a rail is rode on a rail.

Words near ride on a rail in the dictionary

  1. ride herd on
  2. ride high
  3. ride off
  4. ride off into the sunset
  5. ride on
  6. ride on a rail
  7. ride on the back of
  8. ride one's bumper
  9. ride one's luck
  10. ride or die
  11. ride or dies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ride on a rail (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-ride on a rail.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ride on a rail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ride_on_a_rail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.