English · Idiom Candidate

bring up the rear

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To be at the back of a group or procession

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Ở phía sau của một nhóm hoặc đoàn

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to move up to the back

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Nathan and I bring up the rear, and soon we are alone, with Nathan buried beneath the nylon sledge cover.

The northern tribes, Dan, Asher and Naphtali bring up the rear.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “bring up the rear” mean?

To be at the back of a group or procession Literally: to move up to the back

Is “bring up the rear” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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