Word.ws English Dictionary

riding the tiger

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

Meaning of ride the tiger

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To maintain control over something aggressive and dangerous.
    • The Germans had ridden the tiger of Islamic rage and resentment a long way – across the Red Sea into Eritrea and Somalia, into the inner sanctum of the Arabian desert, then winding through Mesopotamia, Persia and Afghanistan […]2012, Sean McMeekin, The Berlin-Baghdad Express, page 258

Questions about riding the tiger

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

Words near riding the tiger in the dictionary

  1. riding the rail
  2. riding the rails
  3. riding the rods
  4. riding the short bus
  5. riding the three-legged mare
  6. riding the tiger
  7. riding the wave
  8. riding time
  9. riding times
  10. riding to hounds
  11. riding up

Source and license

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