"have the world by the tail" meaning in All languages combined

See have the world by the tail on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: en-au-have the world by the tail.ogg [Australia] Forms: has the world by the tail [present, singular, third-person], having the world by the tail [participle, present], had the world by the tail [participle, past], had the world by the tail [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> the world by the tail}} have the world by the tail (third-person singular simple present has the world by the tail, present participle having the world by the tail, simple past and past participle had the world by the tail)
  1. (idiomatic) To possess great influence and opportunity. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: have the world by the bag [vulgar], have the world by the balls [vulgar], have the world by the neck, have the world by the nuts [vulgar], have the world by the testicles, have the world on a string, have the world by the tail on a downhill pull Related terms: have someone by the short hairs
    Sense id: en-have_the_world_by_the_tail-en-verb-gj2mnFyo Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for have the world by the tail meaning in All languages combined (2.7kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has the world by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having the world by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had the world by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had the world by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> the world by the tail"
      },
      "expansion": "have the world by the tail (third-person singular simple present has the world by the tail, present participle having the world by the tail, simple past and past participle had the world by the tail)",
      "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": [
        {
          "ref": "1919, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 15, in A Man Four-Square",
          "text": "\"Webb thinks he's got the world by the tail for a downhill pull. I'll show him.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1938 February 28, “Give Us Colonies!!”, in Time, retrieved 2013-08-07",
          "text": "No nation had the World by the tail this week, but the rear end of the British lion was within measurable distance of Adolf Hitler's grasp.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992 September 24, Sara Rimer, “Company News: Hearing the Fears, With No Answers”, in New York Times, retrieved 2013-08-07",
          "text": "\"You think you're set. You think everything's taken care of. I thought I had the world by the tail.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To possess great influence and opportunity."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_the_world_by_the_tail-en-verb-gj2mnFyo",
      "links": [
        [
          "influence",
          "influence"
        ],
        [
          "opportunity",
          "opportunity"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To possess great influence and opportunity."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "have someone by the short hairs"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "vulgar"
          ],
          "word": "have the world by the bag"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "vulgar"
          ],
          "word": "have the world by the balls"
        },
        {
          "word": "have the world by the neck"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "vulgar"
          ],
          "word": "have the world by the nuts"
        },
        {
          "word": "have the world by the testicles"
        },
        {
          "word": "have the world on a string"
        },
        {
          "word": "have the world by the tail on a downhill pull"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have the world by the tail.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3d/En-au-have_the_world_by_the_tail.ogg/En-au-have_the_world_by_the_tail.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/En-au-have_the_world_by_the_tail.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have the world by the tail"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has the world by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having the world by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had the world by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had the world by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> the world by the tail"
      },
      "expansion": "have the world by the tail (third-person singular simple present has the world by the tail, present participle having the world by the tail, simple past and past participle had the world by the tail)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "have someone by the short hairs"
    }
  ],
  "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 verbs",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1919, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 15, in A Man Four-Square",
          "text": "\"Webb thinks he's got the world by the tail for a downhill pull. I'll show him.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1938 February 28, “Give Us Colonies!!”, in Time, retrieved 2013-08-07",
          "text": "No nation had the World by the tail this week, but the rear end of the British lion was within measurable distance of Adolf Hitler's grasp.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992 September 24, Sara Rimer, “Company News: Hearing the Fears, With No Answers”, in New York Times, retrieved 2013-08-07",
          "text": "\"You think you're set. You think everything's taken care of. I thought I had the world by the tail.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To possess great influence and opportunity."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "influence",
          "influence"
        ],
        [
          "opportunity",
          "opportunity"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To possess great influence and opportunity."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have the world by the tail.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3d/En-au-have_the_world_by_the_tail.ogg/En-au-have_the_world_by_the_tail.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/En-au-have_the_world_by_the_tail.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "vulgar"
      ],
      "word": "have the world by the bag"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "vulgar"
      ],
      "word": "have the world by the balls"
    },
    {
      "word": "have the world by the neck"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "vulgar"
      ],
      "word": "have the world by the nuts"
    },
    {
      "word": "have the world by the testicles"
    },
    {
      "word": "have the world on a string"
    },
    {
      "word": "have the world by the tail on a downhill pull"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have the world by the tail"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.