put the bottom rail on top en · VERB
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Meanings
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(idiomatic) To reverse a hierarchy.
“The nigger Professor” they called me, “with a plan to educate the blacks and to put them above the whites”; “to put the bottom rail on top”; “to subvert Anglo‐Saxon civilization.”
1906–1909, Walter Hines Page, The Southerner, a Novel, Doubleday, Page & Company, page 253:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| putting the bottom rail on top | Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| puts the bottom rail on top | Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres | lexicographic | |
| put the bottom rail on top | Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| put the bottom rail on top | Tense=Past | lexicographic |