"make a poor fist of" meaning in All languages combined

See make a poor fist of on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Forms: makes a poor fist of [present, singular, third-person], making a poor fist of [participle, present], made a poor fist of [participle, past], made a poor fist of [past], be a poor fist at [alternative]
Head templates: {{en-verb|<,,made>}} make a poor fist of (third-person singular simple present makes a poor fist of, present participle making a poor fist of, simple past and past participle made a poor fist of)
  1. (informal, idiomatic) To perform a task badly, incompetently, or unsuccessfully. Tags: idiomatic, informal
    Sense id: en-make_a_poor_fist_of-en-verb-~hvkj~w0 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "makes a poor fist of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "making a poor fist of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made a poor fist of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made a poor fist of",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "be a poor fist at",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,made>"
      },
      "expansion": "make a poor fist of (third-person singular simple present makes a poor fist of, present participle making a poor fist of, simple past and past participle made a poor fist of)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "make a fist of"
        },
        {
          "word": "make a good fist of"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "Thomas Flanagan, novel, The Tenants of Time Chapter 6",
          "text": "I had scant wish for tea, but for want of something to do, I poured myself a cup. Whatever Ned's merits as a captain, he was a poor fist at the tea making.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To perform a task badly, incompetently, or unsuccessfully."
      ],
      "id": "en-make_a_poor_fist_of-en-verb-~hvkj~w0",
      "links": [
        [
          "perform",
          "perform"
        ],
        [
          "task",
          "task"
        ],
        [
          "incompetently",
          "incompetently"
        ],
        [
          "unsuccessfully",
          "unsuccessfully"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, idiomatic) To perform a task badly, incompetently, or unsuccessfully."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "make a poor fist of"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "makes a poor fist of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "making a poor fist of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made a poor fist of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made a poor fist of",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "be a poor fist at",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,made>"
      },
      "expansion": "make a poor fist of (third-person singular simple present makes a poor fist of, present participle making a poor fist of, simple past and past participle made a poor fist of)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "make a fist of"
        },
        {
          "word": "make a good fist of"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "Thomas Flanagan, novel, The Tenants of Time Chapter 6",
          "text": "I had scant wish for tea, but for want of something to do, I poured myself a cup. Whatever Ned's merits as a captain, he was a poor fist at the tea making.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To perform a task badly, incompetently, or unsuccessfully."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "perform",
          "perform"
        ],
        [
          "task",
          "task"
        ],
        [
          "incompetently",
          "incompetently"
        ],
        [
          "unsuccessfully",
          "unsuccessfully"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, idiomatic) To perform a task badly, incompetently, or unsuccessfully."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "make a poor fist of"
}

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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 2026-07-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-07-06 using wiktextract (d9fa233 and 9e92f4b). 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.