Word.ws English Dictionary

sitting on the fence

sitting on the fence is the present participle and gerund of sit on the fence.

Meaning of sit on the fence

Verb

sit on the fence (third-person singular simple present sits on the fence, present participle sitting on the fence, simple past and past participle sat on the fence)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To remain neutral on a certain topic, to not have a stance or opinion.
    • and Bloomah will sometimes sit on the fence, concerning whose discretion, the same thing may be said...1897, John James Procter, The philosopher in the clearing, page 240

Questions about sitting on the fence

What is sitting on the fence the present participle and gerund of?
Sitting on the fence is the present participle and gerund of sit on the fence.

Words near sitting on the fence in the dictionary

  1. sitting on one's arse
  2. sitting on one's ass
  3. sitting on one's hands
  4. sitting on one's laurels
  5. sitting on someone's wheel
  6. sitting on the fence
  7. sitting one's ass down
  8. sitting one's butt down
  9. sitting out
  10. sitting over
  11. sitting pretty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sitting on the fence (page history and authors); sit on the fence (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: “sitting on the fence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sitting_on_the_fence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.