pound the pavement
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
When he's not on the track competing, you will find Paul out pounding the pavements.
NOW pounding the pavements of Greenwich Village: the Pink Panthers.
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 “pound the pavement” mean?
to walk around a city looking for a job Literally: to pound the sidewalk
Is “pound the pavement” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.