"beat the bushes" meaning in All languages combined

See beat the bushes on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Forms: beats the bushes [present, singular, third-person], beating the bushes [participle, present], beat the bushes [past], beaten the bushes [participle, past], beat the bushes [colloquial, participle, past]
Etymology: Both beat the bushes and scare up have figurative senses, referring to traversing the landscape seeking difficult-to-find things, that arose by extension from their senses referring to driving game out of the bush when hunting. Head templates: {{en-verb|beat<,,beat,beaten:beat􂀿colloquial􂁀> the bushes}} beat the bushes (third-person singular simple present beats the bushes, present participle beating the bushes, simple past beat the bushes, past participle beaten the bushes or (colloquial) beat the bushes)
  1. (idiomatic, Canada, US) Synonym of pound the pavement (“to campaign diligently; to seek something”). Tags: Canada, US, idiomatic Synonyms: pound the pavement [synonym, synonym-of] Related terms: beat around the bush, scare up

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for beat the bushes meaning in All languages combined (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Both beat the bushes and scare up have figurative senses, referring to traversing the landscape seeking difficult-to-find things, that arose by extension from their senses referring to driving game out of the bush when hunting.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "beats the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beating the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beaten the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "beat<,,beat,beaten:beat􂀿colloquial􂁀> the bushes"
      },
      "expansion": "beat the bushes (third-person singular simple present beats the bushes, present participle beating the bushes, simple past beat the bushes, past participle beaten the bushes or (colloquial) beat the bushes)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Canadian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with manual fragments",
          "parents": [
            "Links with manual fragments",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "They started beating the bushes in search of a commercially available solvent that would aid their manufacturing but wouldn't be too horribly toxic and wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of pound the pavement (“to campaign diligently; to seek something”)."
      ],
      "id": "en-beat_the_bushes-en-verb-gvJAFKLc",
      "links": [
        [
          "Canada",
          "Canada"
        ],
        [
          "US",
          "American English"
        ],
        [
          "pound the pavement",
          "pound the pavement#English:_campaign diligently, especially when seeking something"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, Canada, US) Synonym of pound the pavement (“to campaign diligently; to seek something”)."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "beat around the bush"
        },
        {
          "word": "scare up"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "extra": "to campaign diligently; to seek something",
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "pound the pavement"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Canada",
        "US",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "beat the bushes"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Both beat the bushes and scare up have figurative senses, referring to traversing the landscape seeking difficult-to-find things, that arose by extension from their senses referring to driving game out of the bush when hunting.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "beats the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beating the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beaten the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat the bushes",
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "beat<,,beat,beaten:beat􂀿colloquial􂁀> the bushes"
      },
      "expansion": "beat the bushes (third-person singular simple present beats the bushes, present participle beating the bushes, simple past beat the bushes, past participle beaten the bushes or (colloquial) beat the bushes)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "beat around the bush"
    },
    {
      "word": "scare up"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "Canadian English",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English links with manual fragments",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "They started beating the bushes in search of a commercially available solvent that would aid their manufacturing but wouldn't be too horribly toxic and wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of pound the pavement (“to campaign diligently; to seek something”)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Canada",
          "Canada"
        ],
        [
          "US",
          "American English"
        ],
        [
          "pound the pavement",
          "pound the pavement#English:_campaign diligently, especially when seeking something"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, Canada, US) Synonym of pound the pavement (“to campaign diligently; to seek something”)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "extra": "to campaign diligently; to seek something",
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "pound the pavement"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Canada",
        "US",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "beat the bushes"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (a644e18 and edd475d). 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.