"muddle through" meaning in All languages combined

See muddle through on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

IPA: /ˈmʌdl̩ θɹuː/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈmʌd(ə)l θɹu/ [General-American] Forms: muddles through [present, singular, third-person], muddling through [participle, present], muddled through [participle, past], muddled through [past]
Etymology: From muddle (“to think and act in a confused, aimless way”) + through. Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*myewh₁-|*mewH-}} Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} muddle through (third-person singular simple present muddles through, present participle muddling through, simple past and past participle muddled through)
  1. (transitive, intransitive) To succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained. Tags: intransitive, transitive Synonyms: get along, get by, make do, muddle along [Britain], scrape along, scrape by Translations (to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained): 應付過去 (Chinese Mandarin), 应付过去 (yìngfuguòqu) (Chinese Mandarin), 勉強勝任 (Chinese Mandarin), 勉强胜任 (miǎnqiǎngshèngrèn) (Chinese Mandarin), selvitä jotenkin (Finnish), pärjätä jotenkin (Finnish), rämpiä läpi (Finnish), sich durchwursteln (German), နကဵုထုဲထံၚ် (Mon)

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ine-pro",
        "3": "*myewh₁-",
        "4": "*mewH-"
      },
      "expansion": "",
      "name": "root"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From muddle (“to think and act in a confused, aimless way”) + through.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "muddles through",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "muddling through",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "muddled through",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "muddled through",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "muddle through (third-person singular simple present muddles through, present participle muddling through, simple past and past participle muddled through)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "mud‧dle"
  ],
  "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"through\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with German translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Mandarin translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Mon translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I’ve only had a few lessons, but I can muddle through the test.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1943 (date written), “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, in Ralph Blane (lyrics), Hugh Martin (music), Meet Me in St. Louis (soundtrack; 1944), performed by Judy Garland:",
          "text": "Someday soon we all will be together / If the fates allow. / Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow. / So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 March 8, Christian Wolmar, “Labour passes up the chance to deliver a forceful rail policy”, in RAIL, number 978, page 34:",
          "text": "If Labour's senior team thinks that it can just muddle through to the next election without a coherent plan about how to tackle the problems of the industry, it is making a big mistake.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained."
      ],
      "id": "en-muddle_through-en-verb--VFssfIb",
      "links": [
        [
          "transitive",
          "transitive"
        ],
        [
          "intransitive",
          "intransitive"
        ],
        [
          "succeed",
          "succeed"
        ],
        [
          "clumsily",
          "clumsily"
        ],
        [
          "ill-equipped",
          "ill-equipped"
        ],
        [
          "inadequately",
          "inadequately"
        ],
        [
          "trained",
          "train#Verb"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, intransitive) To succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "get along"
        },
        {
          "word": "get by"
        },
        {
          "word": "make do"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "Britain"
          ],
          "word": "muddle along"
        },
        {
          "word": "scrape along"
        },
        {
          "word": "scrape by"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive",
        "transitive"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "應付過去"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "yìngfuguòqu",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "应付过去"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "勉強勝任"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "miǎnqiǎngshèngrèn",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "勉强胜任"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "selvitä jotenkin"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "pärjätä jotenkin"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "rämpiä läpi"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "sich durchwursteln"
        },
        {
          "code": "mnw",
          "lang": "Mon",
          "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
          "word": "နကဵုထုဲထံၚ်"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmʌdl̩ θɹuː/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmʌd(ə)l θɹu/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "muddle through"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ine-pro",
        "3": "*myewh₁-",
        "4": "*mewH-"
      },
      "expansion": "",
      "name": "root"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From muddle (“to think and act in a confused, aimless way”) + through.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "muddles through",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "muddling through",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "muddled through",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "muddled through",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "muddle through (third-person singular simple present muddles through, present participle muddling through, simple past and past participle muddled through)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "mud‧dle"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrasal verbs",
        "English phrasal verbs formed with \"through\"",
        "English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European",
        "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *mewH-",
        "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *myewh₁-",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "Terms with German translations",
        "Terms with Mandarin translations",
        "Terms with Mon translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I’ve only had a few lessons, but I can muddle through the test.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1943 (date written), “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, in Ralph Blane (lyrics), Hugh Martin (music), Meet Me in St. Louis (soundtrack; 1944), performed by Judy Garland:",
          "text": "Someday soon we all will be together / If the fates allow. / Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow. / So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 March 8, Christian Wolmar, “Labour passes up the chance to deliver a forceful rail policy”, in RAIL, number 978, page 34:",
          "text": "If Labour's senior team thinks that it can just muddle through to the next election without a coherent plan about how to tackle the problems of the industry, it is making a big mistake.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "transitive",
          "transitive"
        ],
        [
          "intransitive",
          "intransitive"
        ],
        [
          "succeed",
          "succeed"
        ],
        [
          "clumsily",
          "clumsily"
        ],
        [
          "ill-equipped",
          "ill-equipped"
        ],
        [
          "inadequately",
          "inadequately"
        ],
        [
          "trained",
          "train#Verb"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, intransitive) To succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "get along"
        },
        {
          "word": "get by"
        },
        {
          "word": "make do"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "Britain"
          ],
          "word": "muddle along"
        },
        {
          "word": "scrape along"
        },
        {
          "word": "scrape by"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmʌdl̩ θɹuː/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmʌd(ə)l θɹu/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "應付過去"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "yìngfuguòqu",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "应付过去"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "勉強勝任"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "miǎnqiǎngshèngrèn",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "勉强胜任"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "selvitä jotenkin"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "pärjätä jotenkin"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "rämpiä läpi"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "sich durchwursteln"
    },
    {
      "code": "mnw",
      "lang": "Mon",
      "sense": "to succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained",
      "word": "နကဵုထုဲထံၚ်"
    }
  ],
  "word": "muddle through"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.