English · Idiom Candidate

missing stair

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

A person whose behavior is so toxic it enables others to be toxic too

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Người có hành vi độc hại đến mức khiến người khác cũng trở nên độc hại

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: a stair that is missing

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The missing stair in our team was John, whose constant bullying made others feel they could do the same

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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “missing stair” mean?

A person whose behavior is so toxic it enables others to be toxic too Literally: a stair that is missing

Is “missing stair” formal or informal?

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