"down tools" meaning in All languages combined

See down tools on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Forms: downs tools [present, singular, third-person], downing tools [participle, present], downed tools [participle, past], downed tools [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} down tools (third-person singular simple present downs tools, present participle downing tools, simple past and past participle downed tools)
  1. (informal, UK, idiomatic) To stop work, especially when taking industrial action. Tags: UK, idiomatic, informal
    Sense id: en-down_tools-en-verb-QogJ5xfA Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for down tools meaning in All languages combined (1.7kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "downs tools",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "downing tools",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "downed tools",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "downed tools",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "down tools (third-person singular simple present downs tools, present participle downing tools, simple past and past participle downed tools)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 January 2, Conrad Landin, “Strife and strikes in post-war Britain”, in Rail, page 51",
          "text": "But when railway workers downed tools almost a year later, on September 26 1919, Britain was in many ways still a country at war.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 January 22, Heather Stewart, “First industrial action at Amazon UK hopes to strike at firm’s union hostility”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "In Coventry, 300 GMB members plan to down tools over long hours, bad management and a 50p-an-hour pay rise[.]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To stop work, especially when taking industrial action."
      ],
      "id": "en-down_tools-en-verb-QogJ5xfA",
      "links": [
        [
          "stop",
          "stop"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "industrial action",
          "industrial action"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, UK, idiomatic) To stop work, especially when taking industrial action."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "down tools"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "downs tools",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "downing tools",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "downed tools",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "downed tools",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "down tools (third-person singular simple present downs tools, present participle downing tools, simple past and past participle downed tools)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 January 2, Conrad Landin, “Strife and strikes in post-war Britain”, in Rail, page 51",
          "text": "But when railway workers downed tools almost a year later, on September 26 1919, Britain was in many ways still a country at war.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 January 22, Heather Stewart, “First industrial action at Amazon UK hopes to strike at firm’s union hostility”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "In Coventry, 300 GMB members plan to down tools over long hours, bad management and a 50p-an-hour pay rise[.]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To stop work, especially when taking industrial action."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "stop",
          "stop"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "industrial action",
          "industrial action"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, UK, idiomatic) To stop work, especially when taking industrial action."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "down tools"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). 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.