See knife-edge on Wiktionary
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"pos": "noun",
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{
"glosses": [
"A piece of steel sharpened to an acute edge or angle, and resting on a smooth surface, serving as the axis of motion of a pendulum, scale beam, or other piece required to oscillate with the least possible friction."
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"examples": [
{
"text": "The game was on a knife-edge.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "2021 May 5, Drachinifel, 43:40 from the start, in Battle of Samar - What if TF34 was there?, archived from the original on 2022-08-19:",
"text": "[…]meanwhile, Biloxi and Vincennes are both in the process of going down and being abandoned, whilst Miami is right on the knife-edge of being recoverable, with three destroyers clustering around offering pumping and additional damage-control crews to try and keep the light cruiser afloat.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022 January 12, “Boris Johnson's future on a knife edge after No 10 party apology”, in The Guardian:",
"text": "Boris Johnson's future on a knife edge after No 10 party apology [title]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023 April 2, Jon Henley, “Finland begins voting in knife-edge election”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
"text": "Polling stations have opened in a knife-edge election in Finland, with polls suggesting the three leading parties are running neck-and-neck and prime minister Sanna Marin may face an uphill battle to stay in power.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A precarious balance that could be upset by a very small force in either direction."
],
"id": "en-knife-edge-en-noun-N-v6zBwI",
"links": [
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"precarious",
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],
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"balance",
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],
[
"upset",
"upset"
],
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"force",
"force"
],
[
"direction",
"direction"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively) A precarious balance that could be upset by a very small force in either direction."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "1 99 0",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"word": "veitsenterä"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99 0",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"masculine"
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"word": "fil du rasoir"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99 0",
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Messers Schneide"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99 0",
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"masculine"
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"word": "filo del rasoio"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99 0",
"code": "pl",
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"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
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"word": "ostrze noża"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99 0",
"code": "ru",
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"roman": "lézvije nožá",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "ле́звие ножа́"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99 0",
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"word": "bıçak sırtı"
}
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"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: the edge of a knife."
],
"id": "en-knife-edge-en-noun-tgQ2KdN~",
"links": [
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"knife",
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],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0",
"word": "knife edge"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0",
"word": "knife's edge"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0",
"word": "knife's-edge"
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"word": "knife-edge"
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"derived": [
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"word": "knife-edge file"
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"word": "knife-edge effect"
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"pos": "noun",
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{
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"A piece of steel sharpened to an acute edge or angle, and resting on a smooth surface, serving as the axis of motion of a pendulum, scale beam, or other piece required to oscillate with the least possible friction."
],
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{
"text": "The game was on a knife-edge.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "2021 May 5, Drachinifel, 43:40 from the start, in Battle of Samar - What if TF34 was there?, archived from the original on 2022-08-19:",
"text": "[…]meanwhile, Biloxi and Vincennes are both in the process of going down and being abandoned, whilst Miami is right on the knife-edge of being recoverable, with three destroyers clustering around offering pumping and additional damage-control crews to try and keep the light cruiser afloat.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022 January 12, “Boris Johnson's future on a knife edge after No 10 party apology”, in The Guardian:",
"text": "Boris Johnson's future on a knife edge after No 10 party apology [title]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023 April 2, Jon Henley, “Finland begins voting in knife-edge election”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
"text": "Polling stations have opened in a knife-edge election in Finland, with polls suggesting the three leading parties are running neck-and-neck and prime minister Sanna Marin may face an uphill battle to stay in power.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A precarious balance that could be upset by a very small force in either direction."
],
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],
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"(figuratively) A precarious balance that could be upset by a very small force in either direction."
],
"tags": [
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"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: the edge of a knife."
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "knife edge"
},
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"word": "knife's edge"
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"word": "knife's-edge"
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"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"word": "veitsenterä"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "fil du rasoir"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Messers Schneide"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "filo del rasoio"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "ostrze noża"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "lézvije nožá",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "ле́звие ножа́"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "a precarious balance",
"word": "bıçak sırtı"
}
],
"word": "knife-edge"
}
Download raw JSONL data for knife-edge meaning in All languages combined (3.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.