Word.ws English Dictionary

riding the rods

riding the rods is the present participle and gerund of ride the rods.

Meaning of ride the rods

Verb

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

  1. (US, slang) To travel illicitly by clinging to the supporting rods under a freight train.
    • And a dangerous extracurricular activity had helped turn his muscles to iron: he “rode the rods” with other boys, clinging to the underframework of Union Pacific freight cars rumbling through Abilene.1970, Colonel Red Reeder, Dinosaurs A to Z, published 2008

Questions about riding the rods

What is riding the rods the present participle and gerund of?
Riding the rods is the present participle and gerund of ride the rods.

Words near riding the rods in the dictionary

  1. riding the fair
  2. riding the high horse
  3. riding the pine
  4. riding the rail
  5. riding the rails
  6. riding the rods
  7. riding the short bus
  8. riding the three-legged mare
  9. riding the tiger
  10. riding the wave
  11. riding time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: riding the rods (page history and authors); ride the rods (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: “riding the rods.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/riding_the_rods. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.