ride roughshod over
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Treat others harshly or disregard their rights
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
xử lý người khác một cách thô bạo hoặc không coi trọng quyền của họ
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: ride horses over
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
In particular it has attempted to take on board community aspirations and local authority plans rather than ride roughshod over local wishes.
So we are sympathetic towards this er provision of student accommodation, but we also can not ride roughshod over the concerns of the local community.
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.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “ride roughshod over” mean?
Treat others harshly or disregard their rights Literally: ride horses over
Is “ride roughshod over” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
What is the closest equivalent?
“chà đạp” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.