Word.ws English Dictionary

ride on the back of

ride on the back of verb: to make use of; to take advantage of.

Verb

ride on the back of (third-person singular simple present rides on the back of, present participle riding on the back of, simple past rode on the back of, past participle ridden on the back of)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To make use of; to take advantage of.
    • Residential C-banders have been, and will continue to ride on the back of commercial C-band technology. And with millions of dollars' worth of C-band birdies orbiting our planet, I believe it is highly unlikely the programming choices will become reduced.2006 January 30, Maxodyne, “Re: 4DTV Future 2006”, in alt.video.satellite.4dtv (Usenet)
    • But now vaccine doubt is spreading faster and further than ever through social media, and populist rightwing politicians in Europe and the US are riding on the back of a wave of mistrust of vaccine science.2018 December 21, Sarah Boseley, Angela Giuffrida, Christian Davies, Angelique Chrisafis, Oksana Grytsenko, “Rightwing populists ride wave of mistrust of vaccine science”, in The Guardian

Forms of ride on the back of

third-person singular presentrides on the back of
present participleriding on the back of
pastrode on the back of
past participleridden on the back of

Questions about ride on the back of

What does ride on the back of mean?
Ride on the back of means to make use of; to take advantage of.
What part of speech is ride on the back of?
Ride on the back of is a verb.
What is the past tense of ride on the back of?
The past tense of ride on the back of is rode on the back of.

Words near ride on the back of in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ride on the back of (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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