See go pear-shaped on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for go pear-shaped meaning in All languages combined (8.5kB)
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"expansion": "Uncertain",
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"etymology_text": "Uncertain; the following etymologies have been suggested:\n* From the image of a solid rectangle “slipping down” into a pear shape, thus “the bottom drops out”.\n* From the image of a balloon or football losing its spherical shape after being punctured.Tony Thorne (2014) “pear-shaped, adj.”, in Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, 4th edition, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, pages 327–328.\nApparently the term was originally Royal Air Force slang, but came into common use by the 1990s.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "goes pear-shaped",
"tags": [
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},
{
"form": "going pear-shaped",
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{
"form": "went pear-shaped",
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},
"expansion": "go pear-shaped (third-person singular simple present goes pear-shaped, present participle going pear-shaped, simple past went pear-shaped, past participle gone pear-shaped)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"antonyms": [
{
"word": "prosper"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
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"parents": [],
"source": "w"
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{
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1983, Jeffrey Ethell, Alfred Price, quoting Bob Iveson, “To Goose Green and Beyond, 26 May – 7 June”, in Air War: South Atlantic (The Air Combat Trilogy; 3), New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Company, pages 158–159",
"text": "After the third attack run I was letting back down to low level, passing through about 100 feet on the way down, when there were two bangs very close together. The whole aircraft shook and things went \"pear-shaped\" very quickly after that.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1991 January 7, Tim Power, quoting David Coles, “The business of survival”, in Evening Post, Reading, Berkshire: Thames Valley Newspapers, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8, column 2",
"text": "Now the whole world economy seems to be going pear-shaped all at once[…].",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1993 October 16, Sally Vincent, “Lost boys”, in Peter Preston, editor, The Guardian Weekend, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8, column 1",
"text": "Patsy dwells on this, as though on the last ordinarily weird thing she ever experienced, the last moment of sanity before it all went pear-shaped.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1998, Michael Armstrong, quoting Tina Mason, “Team Building”, in Managing People: A Practical Guide for Line Managers, London: Kogan Page, published 2001, part 2 (Managing People – the Basic Skills), page 39",
"text": "If you are asking people to make decisions, then it's very important that you support them when things go wrong, otherwise they'll never make one again … when things go pear-shaped, and occasionally they do, we try to treat it as a learning experience.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2002 March 25, “Stay Positive”, in Mike Skinner (lyrics), Original Pirate Material, performed by The Streets",
"text": "I hope you understand me / I ain't no preaching fucker and I ain't no do-goody-goody either / This is about when shit goes pear-shaped",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008, Nicholas Bate, “What to Do if It Goes Awry”, in Have It Your Way: 52 Brilliant Ideas for Getting Everything You Want, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Infinite Ideas Company, page 38",
"text": "Once you've acknowledged that things have gone pear-shaped, you need to re-take control and move on.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Dave Simpson, “Gary Speed – ‘Speedo’”, in The Last Champions: Leeds United and the Year that Football Changed Forever, London: Bantam Press, part 1 (The Rise), page 24",
"text": "[Gordon] Strachan was an experienced Scottish international who, under Alex Ferguson, had won European honours with Aberdeen and an FA Cup with Manchester United, but his relationship with his former mentor had gone pear-shaped.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2013 December 21, Malcolm Brown, “Without morality, the market economy will destroy itself”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-11-12",
"text": "They call for the economics syllabus to be rewritten to reflect the chasm between the confident mechanistic models they are still taught and the real economy which went pear-shaped.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2017 November, Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl, edited by Meg Foley, CSS: The Definitive Guide: Visual Presentation for the Web, 4th edition, Sebastopol, Calif.: O’Reilly Media, published 22 January 2022, page 697",
"text": "There are a few cases that need to be covered, as they fall under the general umbrella of \"what grids do when things go pear-shaped.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To go awry; to go wrong."
],
"id": "en-go_pear-shaped-en-verb-lni0fC5U",
"links": [
[
"go awry",
"go awry"
],
[
"go wrong",
"go wrong"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive, Australia, British, New Zealand, Ireland, idiomatic) To go awry; to go wrong."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "pear-shaped"
},
{
"word": "play it pear-shaped"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "go downhill"
},
{
"word": "go down the toilet"
},
{
"tags": [
"Cockney",
"slang"
],
"word": "go Pete Tong"
},
{
"word": "go sideways"
},
{
"word": "go to pot"
},
{
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "go to shit"
},
{
"word": "go to the dogs"
},
{
"word": "turn pear-shaped"
},
{
"word": "go pearshaped"
},
{
"word": "go pear shaped"
}
],
"tags": [
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"British",
"Ireland",
"New-Zealand",
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"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "mennä mönkään"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "mennä päin mäntyä"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "mennä pieleen"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "aller à vau-l’eau"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "partir à la dérive"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "partir à vau-l’eau"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "partir en couille"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"tags": [
"informal"
],
"word": "partir en sucette"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"tags": [
"informal"
],
"word": "partir en vrille"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "schieflaufen"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "danebengehen"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "schiefgehen"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "idti naperekosjak",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "идти наперекосяк"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "vsjo idjót naperekosjak",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "всё идёт наперекосяк"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "irse al tacho"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Bloomsbury Publishers",
"Bloomsbury Publishing",
"Royal Air Force",
"Weidenfeld & Nicolson"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ɡəʊ ˈpɛəʃeɪpt/",
"tags": [
"Received-Pronunciation"
]
},
{
"ipa": "/ɡoʊ ˈpɛɚʃeɪpt/",
"tags": [
"General-American"
]
},
{
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"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/12/En-au-go_pear-shaped.ogg/En-au-go_pear-shaped.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/En-au-go_pear-shaped.ogg",
"tags": [
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}
],
"word": "go pear-shaped"
}
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"etymology_text": "Uncertain; the following etymologies have been suggested:\n* From the image of a solid rectangle “slipping down” into a pear shape, thus “the bottom drops out”.\n* From the image of a balloon or football losing its spherical shape after being punctured.Tony Thorne (2014) “pear-shaped, adj.”, in Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, 4th edition, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, pages 327–328.\nApparently the term was originally Royal Air Force slang, but came into common use by the 1990s.",
"forms": [
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"tags": [
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{
"form": "going pear-shaped",
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"head_templates": [
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"args": {
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},
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"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "pear-shaped"
},
{
"word": "play it pear-shaped"
}
],
"senses": [
{
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"word": "prosper"
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],
"categories": [
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"English terms with audio links",
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"English terms with unknown etymologies",
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"Irish English",
"New Zealand English",
"Undetermined quotations with omitted translation",
"Undetermined terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1983, Jeffrey Ethell, Alfred Price, quoting Bob Iveson, “To Goose Green and Beyond, 26 May – 7 June”, in Air War: South Atlantic (The Air Combat Trilogy; 3), New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Company, pages 158–159",
"text": "After the third attack run I was letting back down to low level, passing through about 100 feet on the way down, when there were two bangs very close together. The whole aircraft shook and things went \"pear-shaped\" very quickly after that.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1991 January 7, Tim Power, quoting David Coles, “The business of survival”, in Evening Post, Reading, Berkshire: Thames Valley Newspapers, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8, column 2",
"text": "Now the whole world economy seems to be going pear-shaped all at once[…].",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1993 October 16, Sally Vincent, “Lost boys”, in Peter Preston, editor, The Guardian Weekend, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8, column 1",
"text": "Patsy dwells on this, as though on the last ordinarily weird thing she ever experienced, the last moment of sanity before it all went pear-shaped.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1998, Michael Armstrong, quoting Tina Mason, “Team Building”, in Managing People: A Practical Guide for Line Managers, London: Kogan Page, published 2001, part 2 (Managing People – the Basic Skills), page 39",
"text": "If you are asking people to make decisions, then it's very important that you support them when things go wrong, otherwise they'll never make one again … when things go pear-shaped, and occasionally they do, we try to treat it as a learning experience.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2002 March 25, “Stay Positive”, in Mike Skinner (lyrics), Original Pirate Material, performed by The Streets",
"text": "I hope you understand me / I ain't no preaching fucker and I ain't no do-goody-goody either / This is about when shit goes pear-shaped",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008, Nicholas Bate, “What to Do if It Goes Awry”, in Have It Your Way: 52 Brilliant Ideas for Getting Everything You Want, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Infinite Ideas Company, page 38",
"text": "Once you've acknowledged that things have gone pear-shaped, you need to re-take control and move on.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Dave Simpson, “Gary Speed – ‘Speedo’”, in The Last Champions: Leeds United and the Year that Football Changed Forever, London: Bantam Press, part 1 (The Rise), page 24",
"text": "[Gordon] Strachan was an experienced Scottish international who, under Alex Ferguson, had won European honours with Aberdeen and an FA Cup with Manchester United, but his relationship with his former mentor had gone pear-shaped.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2013 December 21, Malcolm Brown, “Without morality, the market economy will destroy itself”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-11-12",
"text": "They call for the economics syllabus to be rewritten to reflect the chasm between the confident mechanistic models they are still taught and the real economy which went pear-shaped.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2017 November, Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl, edited by Meg Foley, CSS: The Definitive Guide: Visual Presentation for the Web, 4th edition, Sebastopol, Calif.: O’Reilly Media, published 22 January 2022, page 697",
"text": "There are a few cases that need to be covered, as they fall under the general umbrella of \"what grids do when things go pear-shaped.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To go awry; to go wrong."
],
"links": [
[
"go awry",
"go awry"
],
[
"go wrong",
"go wrong"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive, Australia, British, New Zealand, Ireland, idiomatic) To go awry; to go wrong."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "go downhill"
},
{
"word": "go down the toilet"
},
{
"tags": [
"Cockney",
"slang"
],
"word": "go Pete Tong"
},
{
"word": "go sideways"
},
{
"word": "go to pot"
},
{
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "go to shit"
},
{
"word": "go to the dogs"
},
{
"word": "turn pear-shaped"
}
],
"tags": [
"Australia",
"British",
"Ireland",
"New-Zealand",
"idiomatic",
"intransitive"
],
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"Bloomsbury Publishing",
"Royal Air Force",
"Weidenfeld & Nicolson"
]
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],
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"ipa": "/ɡəʊ ˈpɛəʃeɪpt/",
"tags": [
"Received-Pronunciation"
]
},
{
"ipa": "/ɡoʊ ˈpɛɚʃeɪpt/",
"tags": [
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},
{
"audio": "En-au-go pear-shaped.ogg",
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"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/En-au-go_pear-shaped.ogg",
"tags": [
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],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "go pearshaped"
},
{
"word": "go pear shaped"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "mennä mönkään"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "mennä päin mäntyä"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "mennä pieleen"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "aller à vau-l’eau"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "partir à la dérive"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "partir à vau-l’eau"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "partir en couille"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"tags": [
"informal"
],
"word": "partir en sucette"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"tags": [
"informal"
],
"word": "partir en vrille"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "schieflaufen"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "danebengehen"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "schiefgehen"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "idti naperekosjak",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "идти наперекосяк"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "vsjo idjót naperekosjak",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "всё идёт наперекосяк"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "to go awry or wrong",
"word": "irse al tacho"
}
],
"word": "go pear-shaped"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb 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.