Word.ws English Dictionary

standing up on one's hind legs

standing up on one's hind legs is the present participle and gerund of stand up on one's hind legs.

Meaning of stand up on one's hind legs

Verb

stand up on one's hind legs (third-person singular simple present stands up on one's hind legs, present participle standing up on one's hind legs, simple past and past participle stood up on one's hind legs)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To act boldly; to take responsibility.
    • I copied them out of an American Automobile Association report because I'm on the spot for a talk at the Kiwanis Club luncheon next week, and I've found that whenever you've got to stand up on your hind legs and expose your ignorance the best thing you can do is put down a nice thick smoke screen...1941, Popular Science, volume 138, number 3, page 140

Questions about standing up on one's hind legs

What is standing up on one's hind legs the present participle and gerund of?
Standing up on one's hind legs is the present participle and gerund of stand up on one's hind legs.

Words near standing up on one's hind legs in the dictionary

  1. standing under
  2. standing up
  3. standing up against
  4. standing up and being counted
  5. standing up for
  6. standing up on one's hind legs
  7. standing up to
  8. standing up to be counted
  9. standing up with
  10. standing upon one's terms
  11. standing upon points

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: standing up on one's hind legs (page history and authors); stand up on one's hind legs (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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