Word.ws English Dictionary

show ankle

show ankle verb: to provide a hint or to reveal partial information in order to gain attention or arouse interest.

Verb

show ankle (third-person singular simple present shows ankle, present participle showing ankle, simple past showed ankle, past participle shown ankle)

  1. (idiomatic) To provide a hint or to reveal partial information in order to gain attention or arouse interest.
    • "He figures that to do so, he'll have to be able to show a little ankle, to give some idea of new positions the United States is prepared to take."1984 November 28, William Beecher, “Reagan under Pressure to Modify Arms Stance”, in Boston Globe, USA, page 1
    • No one expects Cuomo to declare his candidacy tonight But Carduff said "we expect him to show some ankle".1987 November 23, “Suddenly, A Visit by Cuomo Enlivens a Benefit For Casey”, in Philadelphia Inquirer, USA, page B01

Forms of show ankle

third-person singular presentshows ankle
present participleshowing ankle
pastshowed ankle
past participleshown ankle

Origin of show ankle

Probably an allusion to the flirtatious practice by some young women, especially in the first half of the twentieth century, of raising a long skirt sufficiently to reveal a bare ankle but no more than that.

Questions about show ankle

What does show ankle mean?
Show ankle means to provide a hint or to reveal partial information in order to gain attention or arouse interest.
What part of speech is show ankle?
Show ankle is a verb.
What is the past tense of show ankle?
The past tense of show ankle is showed ankle.

Words near show ankle in the dictionary

  1. show a leg
  2. show a little ginger
  3. show and share
  4. show and tell
  5. show and tells
  6. show ankle
  7. show around
  8. show away
  9. show bag
  10. show bags
  11. show barn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: show ankle (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-show ankle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “show ankle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/show_ankle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.