Rake-stepping

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of repeatedly making damaging and avoidable mistakes. countable, slang, uncountable

    "But the rake-stepping won’t stop, and the attacks won’t go away, raising the question of whether there will come a tipping point for Biden."

Example

More examples

"But the rake-stepping won’t stop, and the attacks won’t go away, raising the question of whether there will come a tipping point for Biden."

Etymology

Popularized by a gag in the 1993 episode "Cape Feare" of The Simpsons, in which Sideshow Bob, already injured, accidentally steps on several rakes, causing the handles to hit him in the face.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.