See fight a losing battle on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "fights a losing battle",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "fighting a losing battle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "fought a losing battle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "fought a losing battle",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "fight<,,fought> a losing battle"
},
"expansion": "fight a losing battle (third-person singular simple present fights a losing battle, present participle fighting a losing battle, simple past and past participle fought a losing battle)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"To continue to wage war when it is clear that one is not going to win."
],
"id": "en-fight_a_losing_battle-en-verb-loRSiYLe",
"links": [
[
"continue",
"continue"
],
[
"wage",
"wage"
],
[
"war",
"war"
],
[
"clear",
"clear"
],
[
"win",
"win"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(literally) To continue to wage war when it is clear that one is not going to win."
],
"tags": [
"literally"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "7 93",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "12 88",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "6 94",
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"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
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}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1984, Lucy Gore, Diary Of A Working Mum, page 18:",
"text": "The bus was oppressively warm and the air-conditioning was fighting a losing battle with the heat.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To attempt a task or other endeavor in which there is no chance that it will succeed."
],
"id": "en-fight_a_losing_battle-en-verb-NMD7F7Tm",
"links": [
[
"attempt",
"attempt"
],
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"endeavor",
"endeavor"
],
[
"chance",
"chance"
],
[
"succeed",
"succeed"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, figuratively) To attempt a task or other endeavor in which there is no chance that it will succeed."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-fight a losing battle.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d2/En-au-fight_a_losing_battle.ogg/En-au-fight_a_losing_battle.ogg.mp3",
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],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "54 46",
"word": "fight a rearguard action"
}
],
"word": "fight a losing battle"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "fights a losing battle",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "fighting a losing battle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "fought a losing battle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "fought a losing battle",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "fight<,,fought> a losing battle"
},
"expansion": "fight a losing battle (third-person singular simple present fights a losing battle, present participle fighting a losing battle, simple past and past participle fought a losing battle)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"To continue to wage war when it is clear that one is not going to win."
],
"links": [
[
"continue",
"continue"
],
[
"wage",
"wage"
],
[
"war",
"war"
],
[
"clear",
"clear"
],
[
"win",
"win"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(literally) To continue to wage war when it is clear that one is not going to win."
],
"tags": [
"literally"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1984, Lucy Gore, Diary Of A Working Mum, page 18:",
"text": "The bus was oppressively warm and the air-conditioning was fighting a losing battle with the heat.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To attempt a task or other endeavor in which there is no chance that it will succeed."
],
"links": [
[
"attempt",
"attempt"
],
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"endeavor",
"endeavor"
],
[
"chance",
"chance"
],
[
"succeed",
"succeed"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, figuratively) To attempt a task or other endeavor in which there is no chance that it will succeed."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-fight a losing battle.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d2/En-au-fight_a_losing_battle.ogg/En-au-fight_a_losing_battle.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/En-au-fight_a_losing_battle.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "fight a rearguard action"
}
],
"word": "fight a losing battle"
}
Download raw JSONL data for fight a losing battle meaning in All languages combined (2.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (b941637 and 4230888). 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.