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View synonyms for bring up the rear
bring up the rear
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Idioms and Phrases
Be last in a line or sequence, as in As a slow walker, I'm used to bringing up the rear , or In test results Tom always brought up the rear . This term almost certainly came from the military but the earliest citation given by the Oxford English Dictionary is from a 1643 religious treatise by Sir Thomas Browne: “My desires onely are . . . to be but the last man, and bring up the Rere in Heaven.”Advertisement
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[ab-skwoch-uh-leyt ]
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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