in the driving seat
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
In control of a situation or project
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Đứng đầu hoặc kiểm soát một tình huống hoặc dự án
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: controlling a vehicle
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The man (if it was a man) was probably a fairly junior member of the firm; if only Henry could find a way of getting past him to the people really in the driving seat.
If it is your passion that is in the driving seat, ask yourself whether you care what effect the actions of your free will will have upon others or upon yourself.
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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “in the driving seat” mean?
In control of a situation or project Literally: controlling a vehicle
Is “in the driving seat” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.