See old college try on Wiktionary
{ "etymology_text": "From the ambitiousness of college athletes. Earliest known use from 1914. Perhaps popularized by a 1917 sermon of the same name by preacher and professional baseball player Billy Sunday (see citations).", "forms": [ { "form": "old college tries", "tags": [ "plural" ] } ], "head_templates": [ { "args": { "head": "old college try" }, "expansion": "old college try (plural old college tries)", "name": "en-noun" } ], "lang": "English", "lang_code": "en", "pos": "noun", "senses": [ { "categories": [ { "kind": "other", "name": "English entries with incorrect language header", "parents": [ "Entries with incorrect language header", "Entry maintenance" ], "source": "w" }, { "kind": "other", "name": "Pages with 1 entry", "parents": [], "source": "w" }, { "kind": "other", "name": "Pages with entries", "parents": [], "source": "w" } ], "examples": [ { "ref": "1929, Munsey's Magazine, volume 96, number 3, page 355:", "text": "Those who have seen Ruth make the \"old college try\" understand that some professionals play with a spiritual fervor which is supposed to be the amateur's prerogative.", "type": "quote" }, { "ref": "1980, T. E. Kalem, \"Happy Hangover\" (theatre review of Fifth of July), Time, 17 Nov.", "text": "Reeve gives his role the old college try—fervent amateurism." }, { "ref": "2003 April 6, Keith Parsons, “Janzen takes two-shot lead in BellSouth Classic”, in USA Today, retrieved 2009-08-16:", "text": "\"You know, all I can do is go out there and give it the old college try and play my hardest.\"", "type": "quote" } ], "glosses": [ "A vigorous, committed attempt or effort, often in the context of a nearly hopeless situation where failure is expected." ], "id": "en-old_college_try-en-noun-MhIwD8ht", "links": [ [ "vigorous", "vigorous" ], [ "committed", "committed" ], [ "attempt", "attempt" ], [ "effort", "effort" ] ], "raw_glosses": [ "(informal) A vigorous, committed attempt or effort, often in the context of a nearly hopeless situation where failure is expected." ], "related": [ { "word": "give it one's best shot" } ], "tags": [ "informal" ], "wikipedia": [ "Billy Sunday" ] } ], "word": "old college try" }
{ "etymology_text": "From the ambitiousness of college athletes. Earliest known use from 1914. Perhaps popularized by a 1917 sermon of the same name by preacher and professional baseball player Billy Sunday (see citations).", "forms": [ { "form": "old college tries", "tags": [ "plural" ] } ], "head_templates": [ { "args": { "head": "old college try" }, "expansion": "old college try (plural old college tries)", "name": "en-noun" } ], "lang": "English", "lang_code": "en", "pos": "noun", "related": [ { "word": "give it one's best shot" } ], "senses": [ { "categories": [ "English countable nouns", "English entries with incorrect language header", "English informal terms", "English lemmas", "English multiword terms", "English nouns", "English terms with quotations", "Pages with 1 entry", "Pages with entries" ], "examples": [ { "ref": "1929, Munsey's Magazine, volume 96, number 3, page 355:", "text": "Those who have seen Ruth make the \"old college try\" understand that some professionals play with a spiritual fervor which is supposed to be the amateur's prerogative.", "type": "quote" }, { "ref": "1980, T. E. Kalem, \"Happy Hangover\" (theatre review of Fifth of July), Time, 17 Nov.", "text": "Reeve gives his role the old college try—fervent amateurism." }, { "ref": "2003 April 6, Keith Parsons, “Janzen takes two-shot lead in BellSouth Classic”, in USA Today, retrieved 2009-08-16:", "text": "\"You know, all I can do is go out there and give it the old college try and play my hardest.\"", "type": "quote" } ], "glosses": [ "A vigorous, committed attempt or effort, often in the context of a nearly hopeless situation where failure is expected." ], "links": [ [ "vigorous", "vigorous" ], [ "committed", "committed" ], [ "attempt", "attempt" ], [ "effort", "effort" ] ], "raw_glosses": [ "(informal) A vigorous, committed attempt or effort, often in the context of a nearly hopeless situation where failure is expected." ], "tags": [ "informal" ], "wikipedia": [ "Billy Sunday" ] } ], "word": "old college try" }
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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 2025-01-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (df33d17 and 4ed51a5). 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.
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