coattail

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   The flap at the back of a coat that hangs down, sometimes below the waist.

2. 2

   Success of a figure, organization or movement that transfers to those who associate with…

   Success of a figure, organization or movement that transfers to those who associate with it.

   • to ride the coattails
   • Mr Obama’s coat-tails may help lift Wall-Street-basher Elizabeth Warren past pickup-driving Everyman and one-time nude pin-up Scott Brown in Massachusetts[…].
   • And Harford grabs the coattails of the trend, giving us 10 rules for thinking differently about numbers in the news, ranging from “check your feelings”, to “ponder your personal experience”, to “keep an open mind”.
3. 3

   To ride the coattails of.

   • It wasn't like I just coattailed the auditor's work. Based on the names on the time cards, I was able to conduct interviews with the employees whose labor was mischarged, and they told me which contracts they had actually worked on.
   • The first of these is what Holt calls coat-tailing on cultural epicenters. Through coat-tailing, the brand becomes part of a social movement or emergent meaning-making sub-culture such that it stands as a vested community member […]

The neighborhood

• neighborcoattail effect
• neighboron the coattails of
• neighborride the coattails
• neighbortail