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stood on the shoulders of giants

stood on the shoulders of giants is the simple past and past participle of stand on the shoulders of giants.

Meaning of stand on the shoulders of giants

Verb

stand on the shoulders of giants (third-person singular simple present stands on the shoulders of giants, present participle standing on the shoulders of giants, simple past and past participle stood on the shoulders of giants)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To build on the achievements of others before one.
    • If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.1675 February 5, Isaac Newton, “Newton to Hooke”, in H. W. Turnbull, editor, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, Volume I: 1661–1675, Cambridge University Press, published 1959, page 416

Questions about stood on the shoulders of giants

What is stood on the shoulders of giants the simple past and past participle of?
Stood on the shoulders of giants is the simple past and past participle of stand on the shoulders of giants.

Words near stood on the shoulders of giants in the dictionary

  1. stood on one's head
  2. stood on one's own bottom
  3. stood on one's own two feet
  4. stood on someone's shoulders
  5. stood on the shoulders of
  6. stood on the shoulders of giants
  7. stood on velvet
  8. stood one's ground
  9. stood one's hand
  10. stood one's lick log
  11. stood out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stood on the shoulders of giants (page history and authors); stand on the shoulders of giants (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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