coattail

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   usually plural: another person's success or influence from which an associate gains an advantage

   Several lesser-known candidates entered office on the governor's coattails.

2. 2
   noun

   the loose back flap of a coat that hangs below the waist

   He tucked each coattail behind him before sitting down.

A compound of coat + tail, first naming the hanging rear flap of a coat. The expression ride on someone's coattails imagines being carried forward by holding that garment and produced the figurative sense of benefiting from another person's success.

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