Word.ws English Dictionary

throw someone a rope

throw someone a rope verb: to rescue someone by providing them with help, such as material aid, financial aid, a face-saving excuse, or a clue.

Verb

throw someone a rope (third-person singular simple present throws someone a rope, present participle throwing someone a rope, simple past threw someone a rope, past participle thrown someone a rope)

  1. (idiomatic) To rescue someone by providing them with help, such as material aid, financial aid, a face-saving excuse, or a clue.
    • Near-synonyms: save someone's life, save someone's skin, save someone's bacon, pull someone's bacon out of the fire, give someone a hand, lend a hand, bail someone out
    • He's out there making a fool of himself. Someone should throw him a rope.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: to rescue someone from drowning by tossing a rope for them to grab onto and be dragged to safety.
    • He's out there fighting the riptide. We need to throw him a rope.

Synonyms of throw someone a rope

Forms of throw someone a rope

third-person singular presentthrows someone a rope
present participlethrowing someone a rope
pastthrew someone a rope
past participlethrown someone a rope

Questions about throw someone a rope

What does throw someone a rope mean?
Throw someone a rope means to rescue someone by providing them with help, such as material aid, financial aid, a face-saving excuse, or a clue.
What part of speech is throw someone a rope?
Throw someone a rope is a verb.
What is the past tense of throw someone a rope?
The past tense of throw someone a rope is threw someone a rope.

Words near throw someone a rope in the dictionary

  1. throw smoke
  2. throw some shapes
  3. throw someone a bone
  4. throw someone a curve
  5. throw someone a curveball
  6. throw someone a rope
  7. throw someone out of bed
  8. throw something in someone's face
  9. throw something in someone's teeth
  10. throw spaghetti against the wall
  11. throw spaghetti at the wall

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: throw someone a rope (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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