Word.ws English Dictionary

stand on one's own two feet

stand on one's own two feet verb: to be independent and self-sufficient; to survive without any help.

Verb

stand on one's own two feet (third-person singular simple present stands on one's own two feet, present participle standing on one's own two feet, simple past and past participle stood on one's own two feet)

  1. (idiomatic) To be independent and self-sufficient; to survive without any help.
    • It's about time he left home and learnt how to stand on his own two feet.
    • Tina is too proud to ask for help and would prefer to stand on her own two feet, she says.2023 December 22, Robyn Vinter, “‘That’s how we’ve got to live’: the black market in England’s shoplifting capital”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    stand on one's own legs

stand on one's own two feet meaning in Tagalog, Malay, Indonesian and Vietnamese

stand on one's own two feet in Tagalog

idiomatic: to be independent
tumayo sa sariling mga paa

stand on one's own two feet in Malay

idiomatic: to be independent
berdikari

stand on one's own two feet in Indonesian

idiomatic: to be independent
berdikari

stand on one's own two feet in Vietnamese

idiomatic: to be independent
tự lập

Synonyms of stand on one's own two feet

  • stand on one's own legs

Forms of stand on one's own two feet

third-person singular presentstands on one's own two feet
present participlestanding on one's own two feet
past participlestood on one's own two feet
paststood on one's own two feet

Questions about stand on one's own two feet

What does stand on one's own two feet mean?
Stand on one's own two feet means to be independent and self-sufficient; to survive without any help.
What is stand on one's own two feet in Tagalog?
Stand on one's own two feet in Tagalog is tumayo sa sariling mga paa. See Stand on one's own two feet meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is stand on one's own two feet?
Stand on one's own two feet is a verb.
What is the past tense of stand on one's own two feet?
The past tense of stand on one's own two feet is stood on one's own two feet.

Words near stand on one's own two feet in the dictionary

  1. stand on end
  2. stand on its own
  3. stand on one's dignity
  4. stand on one's head
  5. stand on one's own bottom
  6. stand on one's own two feet
  7. stand on someone's shoulders
  8. stand on the shoulders of
  9. stand on the shoulders of giants
  10. stand on velvet
  11. stand one's ground

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stand on one's own two feet (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-stand on one's own two feet.ogg.

Cite this entry: “stand on one's own two feet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stand_on_one%27s_own_two_feet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.