Word.ws English Dictionary

shot oneself in the foot

shot oneself in the foot is the simple past and past participle of shoot oneself in the foot.

Meaning of shoot oneself in the foot

Verb

shoot oneself in the foot (third-person singular simple present shoots oneself in the foot, present participle shooting oneself in the foot, simple past and past participle shot oneself in the foot)

  1. (idiomatic) To act against one's own interests; to unintentionally behave self-destructively.
    • but as President he frequently shoots himself in the foot. Some of his erroneous public statements are dillies.1982 April, “Reagan shoots from the lip”, in Black Enterprise, volume 12, number 9, page 16

Questions about shot oneself in the foot

What is shot oneself in the foot the simple past and past participle of?
Shot oneself in the foot is the simple past and past participle of shoot oneself in the foot.

Words near shot oneself in the foot in the dictionary

  1. shot one's cuffs
  2. shot one's load
  3. shot one's mouth off
  4. shot one's shot
  5. shot one's wad
  6. shot oneself in the foot
  7. shot out
  8. shot prop
  9. shot props
  10. shot put
  11. shot puts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shot oneself in the foot (page history and authors); shoot oneself in the foot (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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