Phrase guide

foot-in-mouth disease

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • General-American: /ˈfʊɾ.ɪnˌmaʊθ dəzˈiz/
  • General-American: /- dɪzˈiz/
  • General-American: [ˈɸʊɾ-]
  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • Australia: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A tendency to make remarks that are embarrassingly wrong or inappropriate.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: humorous, idiomatic, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Humorous conflation of foot-and-mouth disease and put one's foot in one's mouth.

Across languages

Translations

3 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Chinese Mandarin: 口不擇言 /口不择言 (kǒubúzéyán) — tendency
  • Finnish: tapa möläyttää — tendency
  • German: but see von einem Fettnäpfchen ins Nächste treten — tendency