get one's foot in the door

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Gain an initial opportunity or advantage to achieve further success

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

có được cơ hội ban đầu hoặc lợi thế để thành công

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: put one's foot inside an entrance
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

She got her foot in the door with a small freelance project

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 “get one's foot in the door” mean?

Gain an initial opportunity or advantage to achieve further success Literally: put one's foot inside an entrance

Is “get one's foot in the door” formal or informal?

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