See touch and go on Wiktionary
{
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"Characterized by brief and transitory encounters."
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"(obsolete) Characterized by brief and transitory encounters."
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"ref": "1983, Earth, Wind & Fire, “Side by Side”, in Powerlight:",
"text": "One year ago, love was touch and go / Time made me see, solved the mystery / Taught me that love and time / Will change your mind, and make it right / Bring your darkness to the light / My heart sings in the night, my love I bring to you",
"type": "quotation"
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],
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"Precarious, delicate, risky, sensitive; of uncertain outcome (by analogy with a ship in shallow water)."
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"_dis1": "3 97",
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"lang_code": "nb",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "på grensen"
},
{
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"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"lang_code": "nb",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "på limiten"
},
{
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"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "bare så vidt"
},
{
"_dis1": "3 97",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "nada certero"
},
{
"_dis1": "3 97",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "al límite"
}
]
}
],
"word": "touch and go"
}
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"etymology_text": "The original sense, now obsolete, seems to have been that of brief encounters. The subsequent nautical sense then gave rise first to the abstract sense (indicating a hazardous situation) and later, by physical analogy, to the aeronautical sense.",
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"text": "As the text doth rise, I will touch and go a little in euery place, untill I come unto too much.",
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],
"glosses": [
"To briefly encounter before moving on."
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"(obsolete) To briefly encounter before moving on."
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"ref": "1771, Francis Fleming, The Life and Extraordinary Adventures, the Perils and Critical Escapes, of Timothy Ginnadrake, that Child of checquer'd Fortune, volume 2, page 29:",
"text": "Whilst they were disputing the vessel touched the ground, but soon got off again.\n\"Ay,\" says the captain, \"he is a good pilot that can touch and go.\"",
"type": "quotation"
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],
"glosses": [
"To touch bottom lightly and continue without damage, as a vessel in motion."
],
"id": "en-touch_and_go-en-verb-dCWDM4ad",
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"(nautical) To touch bottom lightly and continue without damage, as a vessel in motion."
],
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"glosses": [
"To perform a touch-and-go landing."
],
"id": "en-touch_and_go-en-verb-bmCT2MW2",
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"aviation",
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[
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"touch-and-go landing"
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"(aviation) To perform a touch-and-go landing."
],
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"word": "touch and go"
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"Terms with Spanish translations"
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"Characterized by brief and transitory encounters."
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"(obsolete) Characterized by brief and transitory encounters."
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21,
33
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"text": "I could sense it was touch and go whether I could get the lay.",
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23,
35
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],
"ref": "1983, Earth, Wind & Fire, “Side by Side”, in Powerlight:",
"text": "One year ago, love was touch and go / Time made me see, solved the mystery / Taught me that love and time / Will change your mind, and make it right / Bring your darkness to the light / My heart sings in the night, my love I bring to you",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
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],
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"translations": [
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"lang_code": "nb",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "på grensen"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"lang_code": "nb",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "på limiten"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"lang_code": "nb",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "bare så vidt"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "nada certero"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "uncertain",
"word": "al límite"
}
],
"word": "touch and go"
}
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"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
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"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "The original sense, now obsolete, seems to have been that of brief encounters. The subsequent nautical sense then gave rise first to the abstract sense (indicating a hazardous situation) and later, by physical analogy, to the aeronautical sense.",
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{
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"present",
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},
{
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{
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"ref": "1607, Hugh Latimer, “The first Sermon preached by M. Latimer before King Edward”, in Fruitfull Sermons Preached by the right Reuerend Father, and constant Martyr of Iesus Christ, M. Hugh Latimer, page 16:",
"text": "As the text doth rise, I will touch and go a little in euery place, untill I come unto too much.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To briefly encounter before moving on."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(obsolete) To briefly encounter before moving on."
],
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148
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"ref": "1771, Francis Fleming, The Life and Extraordinary Adventures, the Perils and Critical Escapes, of Timothy Ginnadrake, that Child of checquer'd Fortune, volume 2, page 29:",
"text": "Whilst they were disputing the vessel touched the ground, but soon got off again.\n\"Ay,\" says the captain, \"he is a good pilot that can touch and go.\"",
"type": "quotation"
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],
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"To touch bottom lightly and continue without damage, as a vessel in motion."
],
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"nautical",
"nautical"
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"(nautical) To touch bottom lightly and continue without damage, as a vessel in motion."
],
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]
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"To perform a touch-and-go landing."
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"touch-and-go landing",
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"(aviation) To perform a touch-and-go landing."
],
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"engineering",
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],
"word": "touch and go"
}
Download raw JSONL data for touch and go meaning in All languages combined (5.8kB)
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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 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b 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.