Meanings
- Out of date.
Toyota used to be a company with foresight, always ready to take action, but now they have fallen very far behind the curve.
2010 February 4, Alan Ohnsman with Yuki Hagiwara, “Toyota Plans Media Blitz as Stock Loses $21 Billion”, in BusinessWeek1 more example
But in his 1996 novel, Holy Fire, [Bruce] Sterling imagines a rather different future: a world ruled by an all-powerful gerontocracy, which appropriates most of the world's wealth to pay for ever more costly life-extension techniques. […] When the novel first came out, it seemed that Sterling was behind the curve.
1997 March 9, Paul Krugman, “Does Getting Old Cost Society Too Much?”, in The New York Times, →ISSNAntonyms: ahead of the curve
- USgovernmentNot making the progress required.
Synonyms & antonyms
prepositional phraseOut of date.
Translations
Norwegian Bokmål ikke henge med i svingene, passé
- ikke henge med i svingeneout of date
- passéout of date
Polish nie na czasie
- nie na czasieout of date
Cite this entry
behind the curve. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/behind%20the%20curve
“behind the curve.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/behind%20the%20curve. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “behind the curve,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/behind%20the%20curve.
Source: behind the curve on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.