Word.ws English Dictionary

wags the dog

wags the dog is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 wags the dog

What is wags the dog the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Wags the dog is the third-person singular simple present indicative of wag the dog.

Words near wags the dog in the dictionary

  1. WAGRO syndrome
  2. wags
  3. wags a finger
  4. wags hemp
  5. wags it
  6. wags the dog
  7. wagsome
  8. Wagstaff
  9. Wagstaffe
  10. Wagstaffs
  11. wagster

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wags 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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