See beat about the bush on Wiktionary
{ "etymology_text": "From medieval English hunting practices. Some men would whack bushes with sticks to scare birds out so that others could hunt them. Beating the bush directly could be dangerous.", "forms": [ { "form": "beats about the bush", "tags": [ "present", "singular", "third-person" ] }, { "form": "beating about the bush", "tags": [ "participle", "present" ] }, { "form": "beat about the bush", "tags": [ "past" ] }, { "form": "beaten about the bush", "tags": [ "participle", "past" ] } ], "head_templates": [ { "args": { "1": "beat<,,beat,beaten> about the bush" }, "expansion": "beat about the bush (third-person singular simple present beats about the bush, present participle beating about the bush, simple past beat about the bush, past participle beaten about the bush)", "name": "en-verb" } ], "lang": "English", "lang_code": "en", "pos": "verb", "senses": [ { "alt_of": [ { "word": "beat around the bush" } ], "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": "1910 November, Jack London, Theft: A Play in Four Acts, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, Act II, page 107:", "text": "There is no use beating about the bush with a man like you. I know that. You are direct, and so am I. You know my position well enough to be assured that I am empowered to treat with you.", "type": "quote" }, { "ref": "2020 July 15, Mike Brown talks to Paul Clifton, “Leading London's \"hidden heroes\"”, in Rail, page 42:", "text": "\"Meanwhile, we are sitting here starving. Let's not beat about the bush - we are absolutely living hand to mouth now on TfL.", "type": "quote" } ], "glosses": [ "Alternative form of beat around the bush" ], "id": "en-beat_about_the_bush-en-verb-1~3sULR9", "links": [ [ "beat around the bush", "beat around the bush#English" ] ], "tags": [ "alt-of", "alternative" ] } ], "word": "beat about the bush" }
{ "etymology_text": "From medieval English hunting practices. Some men would whack bushes with sticks to scare birds out so that others could hunt them. Beating the bush directly could be dangerous.", "forms": [ { "form": "beats about the bush", "tags": [ "present", "singular", "third-person" ] }, { "form": "beating about the bush", "tags": [ "participle", "present" ] }, { "form": "beat about the bush", "tags": [ "past" ] }, { "form": "beaten about the bush", "tags": [ "participle", "past" ] } ], "head_templates": [ { "args": { "1": "beat<,,beat,beaten> about the bush" }, "expansion": "beat about the bush (third-person singular simple present beats about the bush, present participle beating about the bush, simple past beat about the bush, past participle beaten about the bush)", "name": "en-verb" } ], "lang": "English", "lang_code": "en", "pos": "verb", "senses": [ { "alt_of": [ { "word": "beat around the bush" } ], "categories": [ "English entries with incorrect language header", "English lemmas", "English multiword terms", "English terms with quotations", "English verbs", "Pages with 1 entry", "Pages with entries" ], "examples": [ { "ref": "1910 November, Jack London, Theft: A Play in Four Acts, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, Act II, page 107:", "text": "There is no use beating about the bush with a man like you. I know that. You are direct, and so am I. You know my position well enough to be assured that I am empowered to treat with you.", "type": "quote" }, { "ref": "2020 July 15, Mike Brown talks to Paul Clifton, “Leading London's \"hidden heroes\"”, in Rail, page 42:", "text": "\"Meanwhile, we are sitting here starving. Let's not beat about the bush - we are absolutely living hand to mouth now on TfL.", "type": "quote" } ], "glosses": [ "Alternative form of beat around the bush" ], "links": [ [ "beat around the bush", "beat around the bush#English" ] ], "tags": [ "alt-of", "alternative" ] } ], "word": "beat about the bush" }
Download raw JSONL data for beat about the bush meaning in All languages combined (1.9kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (05fdf6b and 9dbd323). 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.