Word.ws English Dictionary

tail wagging the dog

tail wagging the dog noun: a minor or secondary part of something which is controlling or dominating the whole or the main part.

Noun

tail wagging the dog

  1. (idiomatic) A minor or secondary part of something which is controlling or dominating the whole or the main part.

Origin of tail wagging the dog

First used in the 1858 play Our American Cousin. The shortened form wag the dog, with a political sense, was popularized by the film Wag the Dog (1997). For the verb phrase, see the tail wags the dog.

Words formed from tail wagging the dog

Questions about tail wagging the dog

What does tail wagging the dog mean?
Tail wagging the dog means a minor or secondary part of something which is controlling or dominating the whole or the main part.
What part of speech is tail wagging the dog?
Tail wagging the dog is a noun.

Words near tail wagging the dog in the dictionary

  1. tail tap
  2. tail valve
  3. tail valves
  4. tail vein
  5. tail veins
  6. tail wagging the dog
  7. tail wind
  8. tail winds
  9. tail-bay
  10. tail-bays
  11. tail-beam

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tail wagging the dog (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-tail wagging the dog.ogg.

Cite this entry: “tail wagging the dog.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tail_wagging_the_dog. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.