See thumb on the scale on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "An allusion to a butcher who cheats customers by surreptitiously using a thumb to apply extra pressure to the scale when weighing meat to calculate the price of a sale.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "thumbs on the scale",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "thumbs on the scales",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-",
"2": "thumbs on the scale",
"3": "thumbs on the scales"
},
"expansion": "thumb on the scale (usually uncountable, plural thumbs on the scale or thumbs on the scales)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1982, Emory A. Griffin, Getting Together, →ISBN, page 68:",
"text": "I'll try to give an impartial account without putting my thumb on the scale.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1991, Deborah L. Rhode, Justice and Gender, →ISBN, page 187:",
"text": "[E]ven to characterize these cases as affirmative action is misleading. What critics often present as a thumb on the scale for \"less qualified\" individuals may in fact reflect only necessary adjustments in the way the scale is calibrated.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2009 June 23, “China and US head for trade war”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 2015-11-01:",
"text": "Ron Kirk, the US trade representative, accused Beijing of putting a \"giant thumb on the scale\" by restricting exports of commodities including silicon, coke and zinc, to give Chinese manufacturers an unfair advantage.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014 October 22, Derek Willis, “‘Soft on Crime’ TV Ads Affect Judges’ Decisions, Not Just Elections”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-11-01:",
"text": "\"The data show that the television campaign ads this money buys put a thumb on the scale in criminal cases, and undermine the promise of equal justice.\"",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction."
],
"id": "en-thumb_on_the_scale-en-noun-oL1PkKeL",
"links": [
[
"act",
"act"
],
[
"bias",
"bias"
],
[
"tactic",
"tactic"
],
[
"cheating",
"cheating"
],
[
"unfair",
"unfair"
],
[
"benefit",
"benefit"
],
[
"interaction",
"interaction"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) An act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "tip the scales"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "thumb on the scales"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"uncountable",
"usually"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-thumb on the scale.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/30/En-au-thumb_on_the_scale.ogg/En-au-thumb_on_the_scale.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/En-au-thumb_on_the_scale.ogg"
}
],
"word": "thumb on the scale"
}
{
"etymology_text": "An allusion to a butcher who cheats customers by surreptitiously using a thumb to apply extra pressure to the scale when weighing meat to calculate the price of a sale.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "thumbs on the scale",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "thumbs on the scales",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-",
"2": "thumbs on the scale",
"3": "thumbs on the scales"
},
"expansion": "thumb on the scale (usually uncountable, plural thumbs on the scale or thumbs on the scales)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "tip the scales"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with quotations",
"English uncountable nouns",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1982, Emory A. Griffin, Getting Together, →ISBN, page 68:",
"text": "I'll try to give an impartial account without putting my thumb on the scale.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1991, Deborah L. Rhode, Justice and Gender, →ISBN, page 187:",
"text": "[E]ven to characterize these cases as affirmative action is misleading. What critics often present as a thumb on the scale for \"less qualified\" individuals may in fact reflect only necessary adjustments in the way the scale is calibrated.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2009 June 23, “China and US head for trade war”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 2015-11-01:",
"text": "Ron Kirk, the US trade representative, accused Beijing of putting a \"giant thumb on the scale\" by restricting exports of commodities including silicon, coke and zinc, to give Chinese manufacturers an unfair advantage.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014 October 22, Derek Willis, “‘Soft on Crime’ TV Ads Affect Judges’ Decisions, Not Just Elections”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-11-01:",
"text": "\"The data show that the television campaign ads this money buys put a thumb on the scale in criminal cases, and undermine the promise of equal justice.\"",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction."
],
"links": [
[
"act",
"act"
],
[
"bias",
"bias"
],
[
"tactic",
"tactic"
],
[
"cheating",
"cheating"
],
[
"unfair",
"unfair"
],
[
"benefit",
"benefit"
],
[
"interaction",
"interaction"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) An act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"uncountable",
"usually"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-thumb on the scale.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/30/En-au-thumb_on_the_scale.ogg/En-au-thumb_on_the_scale.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/En-au-thumb_on_the_scale.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "thumb on the scales"
}
],
"word": "thumb on the scale"
}
Download raw JSONL data for thumb on the scale meaning in All languages combined (3.0kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). 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.