Word.ws English Dictionary

taken the wind out of someone's sails

taken the wind out of someone's sails is the past participle of take the wind out of someone's sails.

Meaning of take the wind out of someone's sails

Verb

take the wind out of someone's sails (third-person singular simple present takes the wind out of someone's sails, present participle taking the wind out of someone's sails, simple past took the wind out of someone's sails, past participle taken the wind out of someone's sails)

  1. (idiomatic) To discourage someone greatly; to cause someone to lose hope or the will to continue; to thwart or minimize someone's ambitions.
    • "I tell you Van Bahr Lamb is a fool." […]
      But Polly […] completely took the wind out of her sails, by coolly remarking,— "I like fools."c. 1860, Louisa May Alcott, Aunt Kipp

Questions about taken the wind out of someone's sails

What is taken the wind out of someone's sails the past participle of?
Taken the wind out of someone's sails is the past participle of take the wind out of someone's sails.

Words near taken the wind out of someone's sails in the dictionary

  1. taken the trouble
  2. taken the veil
  3. taken the weight off
  4. taken the weight off one's feet
  5. taken the wheel
  6. taken the wind out of someone's sails
  7. taken the words out of someone's mouth
  8. taken the wrong turn at Albuquerque
  9. taken time
  10. taken time by the forelock
  11. taken time off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taken the wind out of someone's sails (page history and authors); take the wind out of someone's sails (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:

Cite this entry: “taken the wind out of someone's sails.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/taken_the_wind_out_of_someone%27s_sails. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.