put the bottom rail on top

verb

To reverse a hierarchy.

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Meanings

verbput the bottom rail on top (third-person singular simple present puts the bottom rail on top, present participle putting the bottom rail on top, simple past and past participle put the bottom rail on top)

present singular third person puts the bottom rail on top · participle present putting the bottom rail on top

  1. idiomaticTo 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
Cite this entry
APA

put the bottom rail on top. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/put%20the%20bottom%20rail%20on%20top

MLA

“put the bottom rail on top.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/put%20the%20bottom%20rail%20on%20top. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “put the bottom rail on top,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/put%20the%20bottom%20rail%20on%20top.

Source: put the bottom rail on top on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.