Word.ws English Dictionary

wagged the dog

wagged the dog is the simple past and past participle of wag the dog.

Meaning of wag the dog

Verb

wag the dog (third-person singular simple present wags the dog, present participle wagging the dog, simple past and past participle wagged the dog)

  1. (idiomatic) To divert negative political attention by use of a military operation.
  2. Used in a phrasal verb: the tail wags the dog: to control, as a minor part, a larger thing; to be the tail wagging the dog.

Questions about wagged the dog

What is wagged the dog the simple past and past participle of?
Wagged the dog is the simple past and past participle of wag the dog.

Words near wagged the dog in the dictionary

  1. wagge-wanton
  2. wagged
  3. wagged a finger
  4. wagged hemp
  5. wagged it
  6. wagged the dog
  7. waggel
  8. waggels
  9. Waggener
  10. Waggeners
  11. wagger

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wagged the dog (page history and authors); wag the dog (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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