Word.ws English Dictionary

showed the ropes

showed the ropes is the simple past of show the ropes.

Meaning of show the ropes

Verb

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

  1. (informal, intransitive, transitive) To teach the basics of a skill.
    • When I got there, Bill showed me the ropes

Questions about showed the ropes

What is showed the ropes the simple past of?
Showed the ropes is the simple past of show the ropes.

Words near showed the ropes in the dictionary

  1. showed someone a good time
  2. showed someone one's etchings
  3. showed someone the door
  4. showed someone the ropes
  5. showed the flag
  6. showed the ropes
  7. showed the way
  8. showed up
  9. showed who's boss
  10. showed who's the boss
  11. showed willing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: showed the ropes (page history and authors); show the ropes (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: “showed the ropes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/showed_the_ropes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.