Word.ws English Dictionary

tall-poppy syndrome

tall-poppy syndrome is the alternative form of tall poppy syndrome.

Meaning of tall poppy syndrome

Noun

tall poppy syndrome (uncountable)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand) The tendency to criticize, resent, or disparage successful people.
    • One of Australia′s healthiest national traits is the Tall Poppy Syndrome, which involves taking a sceptical view of people who are rich, powerful or successful, and cutting them down to size when they appear pretentious.1997, David Dale, The 100 Things Everyone Needs to Know About Australia, page 52

Questions about tall-poppy syndrome

What is tall-poppy syndrome the alternative form of?
Tall-poppy syndrome is the alternative form of tall poppy syndrome.

Words near tall-poppy syndrome in the dictionary

  1. Tall White
  2. Tall Whites
  3. tall, dark and handsome
  4. tall-case clock
  5. tall-case clocks
  6. tall-poppy syndrome
  7. talla
  8. Talladega
  9. Talladega County
  10. Talladegan
  11. Talladegans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tall-poppy syndrome (page history and authors); tall poppy syndrome (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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Cite this entry: “tall-poppy syndrome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tall-poppy_syndrome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.