foot-in-mouth disease

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Tendency to say things that are unfortunate or offensive

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Tendency nói những điều không may mắn hoặc xúc phạm

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: an illness causing one to put their foot in their mouth
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

He has foot-in-mouth disease and always offends someone at parties

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

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 “foot-in-mouth disease” mean?

Tendency to say things that are unfortunate or offensive Literally: an illness causing one to put their foot in their mouth

Is “foot-in-mouth disease” formal or informal?

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