"a bridge too far" meaning in All languages combined

See a bridge too far on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: en-au-a bridge too far.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: In reference to Operation Market Garden, Allied airborne military operation of 1944. General Roy E. Urquhart, in his 1958 memoir Arnhem, ascribed the phrase to general Frederick “Boy” Browning. It was popularized by being chosen as the title of Cornelius Ryan’s 1974 book on Operation Market Garden and the subsequent 1977 epic war film. Head templates: {{head|en|noun}} a bridge too far
  1. (idiomatic) A step or action that is too ambitious; an act of overreaching. Wikipedia link: A Bridge Too Far (book), A Bridge Too Far (film), Cornelius Ryan, Frederick Browning, Operation Market Garden, Roy Urquhart Tags: idiomatic Translations (step that is too ambitious): 好高騖遠 /好高骛远 (hàogāowùyuǎn) (Chinese Mandarin), askel liian pitkälle (Finnish)
{
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      "lang": "Dutch",
      "lang_code": "nl",
      "tags": [
        "calque",
        "calque"
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      "word": "een brug te ver"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "In reference to Operation Market Garden, Allied airborne military operation of 1944. General Roy E. Urquhart, in his 1958 memoir Arnhem, ascribed the phrase to general Frederick “Boy” Browning. It was popularized by being chosen as the title of Cornelius Ryan’s 1974 book on Operation Market Garden and the subsequent 1977 epic war film.",
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              186,
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            ]
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          "ref": "2006, Adair Broughton, Crossing the Bridge of Infinity, page 40:",
          "text": "Cloning was an interesting concept. Cloning body parts was again just man's search for immortality riding on the back of naive altruistic medicinal benevolence. But cloning a person was a bridge too far.",
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          "ref": "2021 April 28, Zachary Small, quoting William Goetzmann, “As Auctioneers and Artists Rush Into NFTs, Many Collectors Stay Away”, in New York Times:",
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          "ref": "2026 June 8, Andrei Zakharov, “Putin Restricted the Internet. It Has Not Gone to Plan.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
          "text": "Restricting Telegram seems to have been a bridge too far for many Russians.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "A step or action that is too ambitious; an act of overreaching."
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        "(idiomatic) A step or action that is too ambitious; an act of overreaching."
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          "code": "cmn",
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          "lang_code": "cmn",
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          "sense": "step that is too ambitious",
          "word": "好高騖遠 /好高骛远"
        },
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          "sense": "step that is too ambitious",
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        }
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      "word": "een brug te ver"
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  "etymology_text": "In reference to Operation Market Garden, Allied airborne military operation of 1944. General Roy E. Urquhart, in his 1958 memoir Arnhem, ascribed the phrase to general Frederick “Boy” Browning. It was popularized by being chosen as the title of Cornelius Ryan’s 1974 book on Operation Market Garden and the subsequent 1977 epic war film.",
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          "text": "Restricting Telegram seems to have been a bridge too far for many Russians.",
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        "A step or action that is too ambitious; an act of overreaching."
      ],
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        "(idiomatic) A step or action that is too ambitious; an act of overreaching."
      ],
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        "idiomatic"
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        "A Bridge Too Far (film)",
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "lang_code": "cmn",
      "roman": "hàogāowùyuǎn",
      "sense": "step that is too ambitious",
      "word": "好高騖遠 /好高骛远"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "lang_code": "fi",
      "sense": "step that is too ambitious",
      "word": "askel liian pitkälle"
    }
  ],
  "word": "a bridge too far"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.