"never fight a land war in Asia" meaning in All languages combined

See never fight a land war in Asia on Wiktionary

Phrase [English]

Etymology: Attributed to various military leaders, including Bernard Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, the quotation has existed in various forms since the Second World War. It was popularized when used by the character Vizzini in the 1987 movie The Princess Bride (after appearing in the 1973 novel The Princess Bride). Asia is far more heavily populated than Europe or North America, and while Western armies had technological advantages post-WWII, these could be overcome (as they were in Korea by the Chinese PLA and Vietnam by the PAVN) by sheer numbers. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} never fight a land war in Asia
  1. Don't bite off more than you can chew; don't start a fight that is too big to win. Synonyms: pick your battles, never start a land war in Asia

Download JSON data for never fight a land war in Asia meaning in All languages combined (2.9kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Attributed to various military leaders, including Bernard Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, the quotation has existed in various forms since the Second World War. It was popularized when used by the character Vizzini in the 1987 movie The Princess Bride (after appearing in the 1973 novel The Princess Bride). Asia is far more heavily populated than Europe or North America, and while Western armies had technological advantages post-WWII, these could be overcome (as they were in Korea by the Chinese PLA and Vietnam by the PAVN) by sheer numbers.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "never fight a land war in Asia",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "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 entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010 October 1, Zoe Wood, “Retail therapy: foreign chains glimpse window of opportunity in UK market”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "Although Britain is one of the world's most lucrative markets, with retail sales of £286bn last year, expensive shop rents and world-class local competition have kept international groups at bay. Indeed, some analysts put the UK in the \"never fight a land war in Asia\" category due to the challenges posed by the market.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 July 4, Evan Jensen, “The Patent Wars”, in Lexology",
          "text": "Apple’s mistake in instigating a patent war with Samsung is illustrative of a larger pattern involving large stockpiles of patents. “Never fight a land war in Asia” comes to mind.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Philip Kotler, François Maon, A Stakeholder Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility: Pressures, Conflicts, and Reconciliation, Routledge, page 50",
          "text": "\"Well listen here, Walmart,\" wrote blogger Caroline Gallay, \"you should heed the advice of Vizzini in The Princess Bride: Never fight a land war in Asia.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Don't bite off more than you can chew; don't start a fight that is too big to win."
      ],
      "id": "en-never_fight_a_land_war_in_Asia-en-phrase-WUXpbx~h",
      "links": [
        [
          "bite off more than you can chew",
          "bite off more than you can chew"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "pick your battles"
        },
        {
          "word": "never start a land war in Asia"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "never fight a land war in Asia"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Attributed to various military leaders, including Bernard Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, the quotation has existed in various forms since the Second World War. It was popularized when used by the character Vizzini in the 1987 movie The Princess Bride (after appearing in the 1973 novel The Princess Bride). Asia is far more heavily populated than Europe or North America, and while Western armies had technological advantages post-WWII, these could be overcome (as they were in Korea by the Chinese PLA and Vietnam by the PAVN) by sheer numbers.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "never fight a land war in Asia",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English proverbs",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010 October 1, Zoe Wood, “Retail therapy: foreign chains glimpse window of opportunity in UK market”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "Although Britain is one of the world's most lucrative markets, with retail sales of £286bn last year, expensive shop rents and world-class local competition have kept international groups at bay. Indeed, some analysts put the UK in the \"never fight a land war in Asia\" category due to the challenges posed by the market.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 July 4, Evan Jensen, “The Patent Wars”, in Lexology",
          "text": "Apple’s mistake in instigating a patent war with Samsung is illustrative of a larger pattern involving large stockpiles of patents. “Never fight a land war in Asia” comes to mind.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Philip Kotler, François Maon, A Stakeholder Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility: Pressures, Conflicts, and Reconciliation, Routledge, page 50",
          "text": "\"Well listen here, Walmart,\" wrote blogger Caroline Gallay, \"you should heed the advice of Vizzini in The Princess Bride: Never fight a land war in Asia.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Don't bite off more than you can chew; don't start a fight that is too big to win."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "bite off more than you can chew",
          "bite off more than you can chew"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "pick your battles"
    },
    {
      "word": "never start a land war in Asia"
    }
  ],
  "word": "never fight a land war in Asia"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (1d5a7d1 and 304864d). 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.