to walk all over someone
3
7.2
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
pisotear a alguien
- It's important to set boundaries so that people don't walk all over you.
- let them walk all over me
- just walked all over me
Examples
-
I started out doing that, and the kids walked all over me; they did not respect me, and they did not listen to me.
Academic text (2008) -
They'll walk all over you otherwise.
-
You just gonna let her walk all over you?
-
On the other hand, if I back out, those people are just going to walk all over me.
-
Or maybe my lesson is that guys will walk all over you as long as you let them.
-
If I'm calm, people just walk all over me.
-
What do you expect me to do, Annie, just lay back and let him walk all over me?
-
Don't let him walk all over you, hear?
-
They'll walk all over you.
-
You know, you've got to make these people feel you're important, otherwise, they'll walk all over you.
Synonyms
82
4.4
To step heavily on something and damage it
23
6.7
To treat someone badly to gain power or get ahead
6
8.4
To act without care for other people or their rights
1
8.8
Treat people badly and ignore their feelings or rights
1
8.5
Treat other people's feelings, rights, or opinions as not important and ignore them rudely
1
8.4
Treat someone unfairly or hurt them, often when they trust you
To treat someone badly by ignoring their needs and using them
Antonyms
How Dominant
8
6.5
- Informal
3
7.2
- Informal
66
5.6
- Informal
37
4.5
465
2.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase evokes a clear physical image — literally walking all over a person — which maps directly onto treating them disrespectfully or taking advantage of them; a B1 learner who knows 'walk', 'all', 'over' and 'someone' can plausibly infer this metaphorical sense. This gesture-to-dominance metaphor is common cross-linguistically, so the meaning is compositionally predictable rather than idiomatic.
Etymology
The idiom walk all over someone comes from the clear picture of people literally walk over a person on the floor, stepping on them and ignoring their needs. So it means 'to treat someone disrespectfully' or 'to take advantage of them'.