"punch below one's weight" meaning in All languages combined

See punch below one's weight on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: En-au-punch below one's weight.ogg [Australia] Forms: punches below one's weight [present, singular, third-person], punching below one's weight [participle, present], punched below one's weight [participle, past], punched below one's weight [past]
Etymology: An allusion to the sport of boxing, where contenders fight in various weight classes. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} punch below one's weight (third-person singular simple present punches below one's weight, present participle punching below one's weight, simple past and past participle punched below one's weight)
  1. (idiomatic) To achieve or perform at a level lower than should be expected based on one's preparation, attributes, rank, or past accomplishments. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: underachieve, hit below one's weight
    Sense id: en-punch_below_one's_weight-en-verb-eQGXpNOU Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for punch below one's weight meaning in All languages combined (2.6kB)

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "overachieve"
    },
    {
      "word": "punch above one's weight"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to the sport of boxing, where contenders fight in various weight classes.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "punches below one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "punching below one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "punched below one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "punched below one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "punch below one's weight (third-person singular simple present punches below one's weight, present participle punching below one's weight, simple past and past participle punched below one's weight)",
      "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": "2001 September 29, “For men who should know better”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2009-12-23",
          "text": "But the overall effect is flimsy and insubstantial, a gifted writer punching well below his weight.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 May 29, Jonathan Head, “Pita Limjaroenrat: Thai election upstart who vows to be different”, in BBC",
          "text": "Under the military-backed governments of the past decade Thailand is widely viewed as having punched below its weight in international affairs, with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha taking little interest in foreign policy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To achieve or perform at a level lower than should be expected based on one's preparation, attributes, rank, or past accomplishments."
      ],
      "id": "en-punch_below_one's_weight-en-verb-eQGXpNOU",
      "links": [
        [
          "achieve",
          "achieve"
        ],
        [
          "perform",
          "perform"
        ],
        [
          "preparation",
          "preparation"
        ],
        [
          "attribute",
          "attribute"
        ],
        [
          "rank",
          "rank"
        ],
        [
          "accomplishment",
          "accomplishment"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To achieve or perform at a level lower than should be expected based on one's preparation, attributes, rank, or past accomplishments."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "underachieve"
        },
        {
          "word": "hit below one's weight"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-punch below one's weight.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/ba/En-au-punch_below_one%27s_weight.ogg/En-au-punch_below_one%27s_weight.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/En-au-punch_below_one%27s_weight.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "punch below one's weight"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "overachieve"
    },
    {
      "word": "punch above one's weight"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to the sport of boxing, where contenders fight in various weight classes.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "punches below one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "punching below one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "punched below one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "punched below one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "punch below one's weight (third-person singular simple present punches below one's weight, present participle punching below one's weight, simple past and past participle punched below one's weight)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "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"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001 September 29, “For men who should know better”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2009-12-23",
          "text": "But the overall effect is flimsy and insubstantial, a gifted writer punching well below his weight.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 May 29, Jonathan Head, “Pita Limjaroenrat: Thai election upstart who vows to be different”, in BBC",
          "text": "Under the military-backed governments of the past decade Thailand is widely viewed as having punched below its weight in international affairs, with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha taking little interest in foreign policy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To achieve or perform at a level lower than should be expected based on one's preparation, attributes, rank, or past accomplishments."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "achieve",
          "achieve"
        ],
        [
          "perform",
          "perform"
        ],
        [
          "preparation",
          "preparation"
        ],
        [
          "attribute",
          "attribute"
        ],
        [
          "rank",
          "rank"
        ],
        [
          "accomplishment",
          "accomplishment"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To achieve or perform at a level lower than should be expected based on one's preparation, attributes, rank, or past accomplishments."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-punch below one's weight.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/ba/En-au-punch_below_one%27s_weight.ogg/En-au-punch_below_one%27s_weight.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/En-au-punch_below_one%27s_weight.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "underachieve"
    },
    {
      "word": "hit below one's weight"
    }
  ],
  "word": "punch below one's weight"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.