See play hardball on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From the American sport of baseball; the hardball is the heavier and harder type of the two types of throwing ball used when playing that sport (i.e. softball).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "plays hardball",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "playing hardball",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "played hardball",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "played hardball",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "play hardball (third-person singular simple present plays hardball, present participle playing hardball, simple past and past participle played hardball)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "83 17",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "57 43",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "77 23",
"kind": "other",
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{
"_dis": "81 19",
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{
"_dis": "90 10",
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},
{
"_dis": "74 26",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Polish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "84 16",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "78 22",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Swedish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "71 29",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Business",
"orig": "en:Business",
"parents": [
"Economics",
"Society",
"Social sciences",
"All topics",
"Sciences",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He was more than willing to extend the terms of the loan, but his boss decided to play hardball and demanded a balloon payment.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To use every means possible to achieve a goal, especially in disregarding the harm caused."
],
"id": "en-play_hardball-en-verb-Q~R4rYRn",
"links": [
[
"use",
"use"
],
[
"achieve",
"achieve"
],
[
"goal",
"goal"
],
[
"especially",
"especially"
],
[
"disregarding",
"disregarding"
],
[
"harm",
"harm"
],
[
"cause",
"cause"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal) To use every means possible to achieve a goal, especially in disregarding the harm caused."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "iść po trupach"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"perfective"
],
"word": "pójść po trupach"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "jugar duro"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "sätta hårt mot hårt"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "0 100",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Politics",
"orig": "en:Politics",
"parents": [
"Society",
"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "So you wanna play hardball?",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "2021 October 6, Christian Wolmar, “Both sides must work together to get London back on track”, in RAIL, number 941, page 35:",
"text": "But if ministers keep on playing hardball with TfL because of narrow party interests, London will lose out. Forcing a 4.8% rise on London fares will only encourage congestion at a time when the roads are already full and public transport is underused.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To act rough and ruthless, especially in business or politics."
],
"id": "en-play_hardball-en-verb-jjNgTIGh",
"links": [
[
"act",
"act"
],
[
"rough",
"rough"
],
[
"ruthless",
"ruthless"
],
[
"business",
"business"
],
[
"politics",
"politics"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal) To act rough and ruthless, especially in business or politics."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-play hardball.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c4/En-au-play_hardball.ogg/En-au-play_hardball.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/En-au-play_hardball.ogg"
}
],
"word": "play hardball"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English verbs",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Polish translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations",
"Terms with Swedish translations",
"Translation table header lacks gloss",
"en:Business",
"en:Politics"
],
"etymology_text": "From the American sport of baseball; the hardball is the heavier and harder type of the two types of throwing ball used when playing that sport (i.e. softball).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "plays hardball",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "playing hardball",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "played hardball",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "played hardball",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "play hardball (third-person singular simple present plays hardball, present participle playing hardball, simple past and past participle played hardball)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English informal terms",
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He was more than willing to extend the terms of the loan, but his boss decided to play hardball and demanded a balloon payment.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To use every means possible to achieve a goal, especially in disregarding the harm caused."
],
"links": [
[
"use",
"use"
],
[
"achieve",
"achieve"
],
[
"goal",
"goal"
],
[
"especially",
"especially"
],
[
"disregarding",
"disregarding"
],
[
"harm",
"harm"
],
[
"cause",
"cause"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal) To use every means possible to achieve a goal, especially in disregarding the harm caused."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English informal terms",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "So you wanna play hardball?",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "2021 October 6, Christian Wolmar, “Both sides must work together to get London back on track”, in RAIL, number 941, page 35:",
"text": "But if ministers keep on playing hardball with TfL because of narrow party interests, London will lose out. Forcing a 4.8% rise on London fares will only encourage congestion at a time when the roads are already full and public transport is underused.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To act rough and ruthless, especially in business or politics."
],
"links": [
[
"act",
"act"
],
[
"rough",
"rough"
],
[
"ruthless",
"ruthless"
],
[
"business",
"business"
],
[
"politics",
"politics"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal) To act rough and ruthless, especially in business or politics."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-play hardball.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c4/En-au-play_hardball.ogg/En-au-play_hardball.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/En-au-play_hardball.ogg"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "iść po trupach"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"perfective"
],
"word": "pójść po trupach"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "jugar duro"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "sätta hårt mot hårt"
}
],
"word": "play hardball"
}
Download raw JSONL data for play hardball meaning in All languages combined (3.5kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (0c0c1f1 and 4230888). 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.