Word.ws English Dictionary

toe to toe

toe to toe adverb: positioned facing another, with the toes touching.

Adverb

toe to toe (not comparable)

  1. (literal) Positioned facing another, with the toes touching.
  2. (figuratively) At the same level as someone else.
    • standing toe to toe
    Synonyms:
    head to head
  3. Against, in direct opposition.
    • go toe to toe with someone
    • It would be difficult, for example, to imagine a bigger, more obvious subject for comedy than the laughable self-delusion of washed-up celebrities, especially if the washed-up celebrity in question is Adam West, a camp icon who can go toe to toe with William Shatner as the king of winking...2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in The A.V. Club
    Synonyms:
    head to head

Examples of toe to toe in a sentence

  • Harris said he was confident he could go toe to toe with any skeptic; he bragged that he’d recently schooled some crypto haters from Vice News.2022 March 31, David Yaffe-Bellany, “Ben McKenzie Would Like a Word With the Crypto Bros”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
  • It’s a grim stalemate that has taken on the rhythms of a heavyweight title bout, with each side going toe to toe in one of the longest-running battles of the war.2023 January 9, Andrew E. Kramer, Nicole Tung, “Without Hesitation, Ukraine Goes Toe to Toe With Russia in Bakhmut”, in The New York Times...

Synonyms of toe to toe

Forms of toe to toe

alternative formtoe-to-toe

Words that rhyme with toe to toe

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about toe to toe

What does toe to toe mean?
Toe to toe means positioned facing another, with the toes touching.
How do you use toe to toe in a sentence?
Harris said he was confident he could go toe to toe with any skeptic; he bragged that he’d recently schooled some crypto haters from Vice News.
What part of speech is toe to toe?
Toe to toe is an adverb.

Words near toe to toe in the dictionary

  1. toe tappers
  2. toe the line
  3. toe the mark
  4. toe the plank
  5. toe the rubber
  6. toe to toe
  7. toe touch
  8. toe touches
  9. toe wall
  10. toe walls
  11. toe-and-heel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: toe to toe (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-toe-to-toe.ogg.

Cite this entry: “toe to toe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/toe_to_toe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.