English · Idiom Candidate

step on someone's toes

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

to offend or annoy someone

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

làm cho ai đó cảm thấy bị xúc phạm hoặc khó chịu

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: tread on someone's feet

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

' The truth is, I've simply been trying not to step on Merry's toes.

It is said the reason why Taurus ran into trouble was a reluctance to step on anyone's toes.

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.

Topics: Legs

Common questions

What does “step on someone's toes” mean?

to offend or annoy someone Literally: tread on someone's feet

Is “step on someone's toes” formal or informal?

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

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