"have one's ducks in a row" meaning in All languages combined

See have one's ducks in a row on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: en-au-have one's ducks in a row.ogg Forms: has one's ducks in a row [present, singular, third-person], having one's ducks in a row [participle, present], had one's ducks in a row [participle, past], had one's ducks in a row [past]
Etymology: Perhaps from the image of ducklings following their mother in an orderly line. See also line up one's ducks. Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> one's ducks in a row}} have one's ducks in a row (third-person singular simple present has one's ducks in a row, present participle having one's ducks in a row, simple past and past participle had one's ducks in a row)
  1. (idiomatic) To be organized; to have one's affairs in order; specifically, to have a multi-person effort coordinated towards the exact same goal. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: get one's ducks in a row, put one's ducks in a row Related terms: line up one's ducks, put one's house in order, waterfowl alignment
    Sense id: en-have_one's_ducks_in_a_row-en-verb-US7VY5mo Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSONL data for have one's ducks in a row meaning in All languages combined (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Perhaps from the image of ducklings following their mother in an orderly line. See also line up one's ducks.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has one's ducks in a row",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having one's ducks in a row",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had one's ducks in a row",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had one's ducks in a row",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> one's ducks in a row"
      },
      "expansion": "have one's ducks in a row (third-person singular simple present has one's ducks in a row, present participle having one's ducks in a row, simple past and past participle had one's ducks in a row)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Wouldn't it be nice to have our ducks in a row and not have to search for the papers every time we needed them?",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1911, Kate Langley Bosher, Miss Gibbie Gault",
          "text": "\"You didn't need us.\" The man standing next to the steps laughed. \"The work was done before to-night. You had your ducks in a row all right.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be organized; to have one's affairs in order; specifically, to have a multi-person effort coordinated towards the exact same goal."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_one's_ducks_in_a_row-en-verb-US7VY5mo",
      "links": [
        [
          "organized",
          "organized"
        ],
        [
          "affairs",
          "affairs"
        ],
        [
          "order",
          "order"
        ],
        [
          "coordinate",
          "coordinate"
        ],
        [
          "goal",
          "goal"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be organized; to have one's affairs in order; specifically, to have a multi-person effort coordinated towards the exact same goal."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "line up one's ducks"
        },
        {
          "word": "put one's house in order"
        },
        {
          "word": "waterfowl alignment"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "get one's ducks in a row"
        },
        {
          "word": "put one's ducks in a row"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have one's ducks in a row.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4f/En-au-have_one%27s_ducks_in_a_row.ogg/En-au-have_one%27s_ducks_in_a_row.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/En-au-have_one%27s_ducks_in_a_row.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have one's ducks in a row"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Perhaps from the image of ducklings following their mother in an orderly line. See also line up one's ducks.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has one's ducks in a row",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having one's ducks in a row",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had one's ducks in a row",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had one's ducks in a row",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> one's ducks in a row"
      },
      "expansion": "have one's ducks in a row (third-person singular simple present has one's ducks in a row, present participle having one's ducks in a row, simple past and past participle had one's ducks in a row)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "line up one's ducks"
    },
    {
      "word": "put one's house in order"
    },
    {
      "word": "waterfowl alignment"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Wouldn't it be nice to have our ducks in a row and not have to search for the papers every time we needed them?",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1911, Kate Langley Bosher, Miss Gibbie Gault",
          "text": "\"You didn't need us.\" The man standing next to the steps laughed. \"The work was done before to-night. You had your ducks in a row all right.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be organized; to have one's affairs in order; specifically, to have a multi-person effort coordinated towards the exact same goal."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "organized",
          "organized"
        ],
        [
          "affairs",
          "affairs"
        ],
        [
          "order",
          "order"
        ],
        [
          "coordinate",
          "coordinate"
        ],
        [
          "goal",
          "goal"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be organized; to have one's affairs in order; specifically, to have a multi-person effort coordinated towards the exact same goal."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have one's ducks in a row.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4f/En-au-have_one%27s_ducks_in_a_row.ogg/En-au-have_one%27s_ducks_in_a_row.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/En-au-have_one%27s_ducks_in_a_row.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "get one's ducks in a row"
    },
    {
      "word": "put one's ducks in a row"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have one's ducks in a row"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-27 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-06-20 using wiktextract (0f7b3ac and b863ecc). 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.