Word.ws English Dictionary

rode the tiger

rode the tiger is the simple past 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 rode the tiger

What is rode the tiger the simple past of?
Rode the tiger is the simple past of ride the tiger.

Words near rode the tiger in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rode 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: “rode the tiger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rode_the_tiger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.