See push water uphill on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "pushes water uphill",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "pushing water uphill",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "pushed water uphill",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pushed water uphill",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "push water uphill (third-person singular simple present pushes water uphill, present participle pushing water uphill, simple past and past participle pushed water uphill)",
"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"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1917, Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - Volume 21, Chilton Company, page 161:",
"text": "A Salesman Unaided by the House is Pushing Water Uphill.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Michael Roe, Marketing Professional Services, Routledge, →ISBN, page 9:",
"text": "Without that commitment you will be pushing water uphill the whole time and will lose your own, necessary motivation.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013, Zoë C Lloyd, All Patients Great and Small: Tales of a Rural District Nurse, BalboaPress, →ISBN, page 28:",
"text": "Persuading Kenny that measuring his calves did not require removal of his underpants and trousers was akin to pushing water uphill. He claimed that he couldn't tell what I was saying, which seemed strange as he had no problem deciphering the initial message.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014, Roger Lane-Smith, A Fork in the Road: From Single Partner to Largest Legal Practice in the World, Icon Books, →ISBN:",
"text": "Our relationship with Donovan Leisure was doing well, in truth because Rod Hills and I worked so hard on it, but often it felt like pushing water uphill.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, Stephanie Butland, Letters To My Husband, Random House, →ISBN, page 237:",
"text": "And they have another drink, and they try to talk about something else, they really do, but it's like pushing water uphill: it won't work, and it's exhausting.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"try to achieve a goal despite huge resistance, being an uphill battle"
],
"id": "en-push_water_uphill-en-verb-c5u3bkn6",
"links": [
[
"uphill battle",
"uphill battle"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) try to achieve a goal despite huge resistance, being an uphill battle"
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "push water uphill with a rake"
},
{
"word": "push water uphill with a fork"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"word": "push water uphill"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "pushes water uphill",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "pushing water uphill",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "pushed water uphill",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pushed water uphill",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "push water uphill (third-person singular simple present pushes water uphill, present participle pushing water uphill, simple past and past participle pushed water uphill)",
"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 quotations",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1917, Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - Volume 21, Chilton Company, page 161:",
"text": "A Salesman Unaided by the House is Pushing Water Uphill.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Michael Roe, Marketing Professional Services, Routledge, →ISBN, page 9:",
"text": "Without that commitment you will be pushing water uphill the whole time and will lose your own, necessary motivation.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013, Zoë C Lloyd, All Patients Great and Small: Tales of a Rural District Nurse, BalboaPress, →ISBN, page 28:",
"text": "Persuading Kenny that measuring his calves did not require removal of his underpants and trousers was akin to pushing water uphill. He claimed that he couldn't tell what I was saying, which seemed strange as he had no problem deciphering the initial message.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014, Roger Lane-Smith, A Fork in the Road: From Single Partner to Largest Legal Practice in the World, Icon Books, →ISBN:",
"text": "Our relationship with Donovan Leisure was doing well, in truth because Rod Hills and I worked so hard on it, but often it felt like pushing water uphill.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, Stephanie Butland, Letters To My Husband, Random House, →ISBN, page 237:",
"text": "And they have another drink, and they try to talk about something else, they really do, but it's like pushing water uphill: it won't work, and it's exhausting.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"try to achieve a goal despite huge resistance, being an uphill battle"
],
"links": [
[
"uphill battle",
"uphill battle"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) try to achieve a goal despite huge resistance, being an uphill battle"
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "push water uphill with a rake"
},
{
"word": "push water uphill with a fork"
}
],
"word": "push water uphill"
}
Download raw JSONL data for push water uphill meaning in All languages combined (2.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (95d2be1 and 64224ec). 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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