Idiom
walk a mile in someone's shoes
Meaning
To experience what someone has experienced.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“You should walk a mile in his shoes before you judge him.”
“It is hard to understand her stress until you walk a mile in her shoes and manage the whole department.”
“Before criticizing the difficult decisions made by the leader, one must attempt to walk a mile in their shoes to appreciate the complexity of the situation.”
Examples
simple
“You should walk a mile in his shoes before you judge him.”
contextual
“It is hard to understand her stress until you walk a mile in her shoes and manage the whole department.”
complex
“Before criticizing the difficult decisions made by the leader, one must attempt to walk a mile in their shoes to appreciate the complexity of the situation.”
Origin
From walk + a + mile + in + [possessive pronoun] + shoes. Originally, and still chiefly, found in admonitions not to judge a person until one has walked a mile in that person's shoes.
Key words
Related idioms
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