Word.ws English Dictionary

trailing behind

trailing behind is the present participle and gerund of trail behind.

Meaning of trail behind

Verb

trail behind (third-person singular simple present trails behind, present participle trailing behind, simple past and past participle trailed behind)

  1. (transitive) To increase or to succeed at a rate lower than (something else).
    • Tech stocks trailed behind the overall market today.
  2. (transitive) To follow (someone) slowly, usually surreptitiously.

Questions about trailing behind

What is trailing behind the present participle and gerund of?
Trailing behind is the present participle and gerund of trail behind.

Words near trailing behind in the dictionary

  1. trailing arbutus
  2. trailing arbutuses
  3. trailing away
  4. trailing axle
  5. trailing axles
  6. trailing behind
  7. trailing commission
  8. trailing commissions
  9. trailing edge
  10. trailing edges
  11. trailing off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trailing behind (page history and authors); trail behind (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: “trailing behind.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/trailing_behind. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.