"pull back the curtain" meaning in All languages combined

See pull back the curtain on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Forms: pulls back the curtain [present, singular, third-person], pulling back the curtain [participle, present], pulled back the curtain [participle, past], pulled back the curtain [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} pull back the curtain (third-person singular simple present pulls back the curtain, present participle pulling back the curtain, simple past and past participle pulled back the curtain)
  1. (idiomatic) To reveal an underlying truth. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-pull_back_the_curtain-en-verb-g3YIGlPt Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls back the curtain",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling back the curtain",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled back the curtain",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled back the curtain",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull back the curtain (third-person singular simple present pulls back the curtain, present participle pulling back the curtain, simple past and past participle pulled back the curtain)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "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": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              49,
              70
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2020 December 17, Nathan J. Robinson, “The Sophist and The Magician”, in Current Affairs, archived from the original on 10 Oct 2024:",
          "text": "Understanding how we can be manipulated helps us pull back the curtain on charlatans and can even protect democracy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To reveal an underlying truth."
      ],
      "id": "en-pull_back_the_curtain-en-verb-g3YIGlPt",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To reveal an underlying truth."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull back the curtain"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls back the curtain",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling back the curtain",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled back the curtain",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled back the curtain",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull back the curtain (third-person singular simple present pulls back the curtain, present participle pulling back the curtain, simple past and past participle pulled back the curtain)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              49,
              70
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2020 December 17, Nathan J. Robinson, “The Sophist and The Magician”, in Current Affairs, archived from the original on 10 Oct 2024:",
          "text": "Understanding how we can be manipulated helps us pull back the curtain on charlatans and can even protect democracy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To reveal an underlying truth."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To reveal an underlying truth."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull back the curtain"
}

Download raw JSONL data for pull back the curtain meaning in All languages combined (1.3kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-11 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (602557e and 59dc20b). 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.