Word.ws English Dictionary

tread on someone's toes

tread on someone's toes verb: to offend someone.

Verb

tread on someone's toes (third-person singular simple present treads on someone's toes, present participle treading on someone's toes, simple past and past participle trod on someone's toes or tread on someone's toes or trodden on someone's toes)

  1. (idiomatic) To offend someone.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see tread, toes.

Synonyms of tread on someone's toes

Forms of tread on someone's toes

third-person singular presenttreads on someone's toes
present participletreading on someone's toes
past participletrod on someone's toes
pasttrod on someone's toes
past participletread on someone's toes
pasttread on someone's toes
past participletrodden on someone's toes
pasttrodden on someone's toes

Questions about tread on someone's toes

What does tread on someone's toes mean?
Tread on someone's toes means to offend someone.
What part of speech is tread on someone's toes?
Tread on someone's toes is a verb.
What is the past tense of tread on someone's toes?
The past tense of tread on someone's toes is trod on someone's toes.

Words near tread on someone's toes in the dictionary

  1. tread in someone's steps
  2. tread lightly
  3. tread on
  4. tread on eggshells
  5. tread on someone's corns
  6. tread on someone's toes
  7. tread out
  8. tread softly
  9. tread the boards
  10. tread the stage
  11. tread upon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tread on someone's toes (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: “tread on someone's toes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tread_on_someone%27s_toes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.