Word.ws English Dictionary

stick the landing

stick the landing verb: to complete a gymnastic or other athletic routine involving leaps, vaults, somersaults, etc. by landing firmly, solidly, and flawlessly on one's feet.

Verb

stick the landing (third-person singular simple present sticks the landing, present participle sticking the landing, simple past and past participle stuck the landing)

  1. To complete a gymnastic or other athletic routine involving leaps, vaults, somersaults, etc. by landing firmly, solidly, and flawlessly on one's feet.
    • When Park came down from his vault, sticking the landing perfectly upright and unwavering, a huge roar went up from the 13,596 spectators.1988 September 24, Lawrie Mifflin, “Seoul Olympics: Soviet Men on Another Roll”, in New York Times, retrieved 01 May 2018
    • Holland also did many of his own stunts, including his entry flip. Apparently the studio didn't want the 19-year-old to perform the flip, but the directing duo told him to go for it and he stuck the landing.2016 May 10, Jack Shepherd, “Captain America: Civil War: How Tom Holland won over Marvel to become Spider-Man”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 01 May 2018
  2. To execute a flawless landing (of an aircraft, rocket, or space capsule).
    • When the Philae lander, released by the comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft, first tried to touch down on Nov. 12 in an area later named Agilkia, it could not stick the landing. The anchoring harpoons and retro-rockets did not work and the lander bounced off the comet.2015 July 31, Amina Khan, “After a bounce, Rosetta's Philae lander serves up cometary surprises”, in Los Angeles Times, retrieved 01 May 2018
    • Still, SpaceX stuck the landing the last time under similar conditions. And now in its quest to launch and recover rockets so that they may be used again, SpaceX is acquiring quite a collection of previously used booster stages.2016 May 26, Christian Davenport, “Elon Musk’s quest to make rocket landings routine continues today”, in Washington Post, retrieved 01 May 2018
  3. (broadly, idiomatic) To complete a process in an impressive and conclusive manner.
    • This was a big speech with a high degree of difficulty. And, Don Jr. stuck the landing.2016 July 19, Chris Cillizza, “Winners and losers from the second night of the Republican National Convention”, in Los Angeles Times, retrieved 01 May 2018
    • In the end, the third season of Fargo stuck the landing so well that its missteps seem more like scars on fine leather than signs of a show in decline.2017 June 21, Scott Tobias, “Fargo Season 3 Finale: Bled Out”, in New York Times, retrieved 01 May 2018

Forms of stick the landing

third-person singular presentsticks the landing
present participlesticking the landing
past participlestuck the landing
paststuck the landing

Origin of stick the landing

Evidently by metaphor with sticking (placing quickly, thrusting) something quite accurately into a specific place. The term is not specific to aviation: see stick. Thus, this term evidently does not come from a reference to an aircraft's stick (“control stick”). It also does not involve the same metaphor as deadstick landing, whose stick is, originally, a wooden propeller that has lost its engine power.

Questions about stick the landing

What does stick the landing mean?
Stick the landing means to complete a gymnastic or other athletic routine involving leaps, vaults, somersaults, etc. by landing firmly, solidly, and flawlessly on one's feet.
What part of speech is stick the landing?
Stick the landing is a verb.
What is the past tense of stick the landing?
The past tense of stick the landing is stuck the landing.

Words near stick the landing in the dictionary

  1. stick shakers
  2. stick shift
  3. stick shifts
  4. stick that in your pipe and smoke it
  5. stick the knife in
  6. stick the landing
  7. stick time
  8. stick times
  9. stick to
  10. stick to business
  11. stick to one's guns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stick the landing (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-stick the landing.ogg.

Cite this entry: “stick the landing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stick_the_landing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.