put one's foot in it
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to say or do something embarrassing or unfortunate
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
nói hoặc làm điều gì đó gây bối rối hoặc không may
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: step on something with one's foot
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
He put his foot in it when he insulted his girlfriend's cooking
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 “put one's foot in it” mean?
to say or do something embarrassing or unfortunate Literally: step on something with one's foot
Is “put one's foot in it” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.