Word.ws English Dictionary

when push comes to shove

when push comes to shove phrase: when the pressure is on; when the situation is critical or urgent; when the time has come for action, even if it is difficult.

Phrase

when push comes to shove

  1. (figuratively, idiomatic) When the pressure is on; when the situation is critical or urgent; when the time has come for action, even if it is difficult.
    • He is not a particularly talented builder, but when push comes to shove, he can usually get the job done.
    • While most chose at that time either to disband or to join the APC rally several blocks north in McPherson Park, several hundred mostly young DC-area blacks and a sizable number of militant Palestinians continued to demand their right to confront the Klan. Push somehow came to shove and the...1982 December 18, David France, “Protests Drive Klan Rally Out Of Washington”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 22, page 1

when push comes to shove meaning in Arabic and Indonesian

when push comes to shove in Arabic

when the pressure is on
عندما يجدّ الجدّ

when push comes to shove in Indonesian

when the pressure is on
pada saat-saat genting

Forms of when push comes to shove

alternative formif push comes to shove

Questions about when push comes to shove

What does when push comes to shove mean?
When push comes to shove means when the pressure is on; when the situation is critical or urgent; when the time has come for action, even if it is difficult.
What is when push comes to shove in Arabic?
When push comes to shove in Arabic is عندما يجدّ الجدّ. See When push comes to shove meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is when push comes to shove?
When push comes to shove is a phrase.

Words near when push comes to shove in the dictionary

  1. when one door shuts, another one opens
  2. when one door shuts, another opens
  3. when opportunity knocks
  4. when pigs can fly
  5. when pigs fly
  6. when push comes to shove
  7. when shrimps whistle
  8. when the balloon goes up
  9. when the cat's away
  10. when the cat's away the mice play
  11. when the cat's away the mice will play

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: when push comes to shove (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-when push comes to shove.ogg.

Cite this entry: “when push comes to shove.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/when_push_comes_to_shove. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.