See see the forest for the trees on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for see the forest for the trees meaning in All languages combined (11.5kB)
{
"etymology_text": "John Heywood documented the English use of the proverb in 1546.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "sees the forest for the trees",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "seeing the forest for the trees",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "saw the forest for the trees",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "seen the forest for the trees",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
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"1": "see<,,saw,seen> the forest for the trees",
"head": "see the forest for the trees"
},
"expansion": "see the forest for the trees (third-person singular simple present sees the forest for the trees, present participle seeing the forest for the trees, simple past saw the forest for the trees, past participle seen the forest for the trees)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
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],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Smith is good at detail, but can't see the forest for the trees.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1902, Emily Constance Baird Cook, Highways and Byways in London",
"text": "It is, indeed, the principal drawback to the study of London that she is too vast—that the student is ever in danger of \"not seeing the forest for the trees.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1916, Albert Einstein (tr. Robert W. Lawson), “Preface”, in Relativity: The Special and General Theory",
"text": "On the other hand, I have purposely treated the empirical physical foundations of the theory in a \"step-motherly\" fashion, so that readers unfamiliar with physics may not feel like the wanderer who was unable to see the forest for the trees.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1919, Louis Tracy, The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley, page 96",
"text": "Your only failing is that you can't see the forest for the trees.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To discern an overall pattern from a mass of detail; to see the big picture, or the broader, more general situation."
],
"id": "en-see_the_forest_for_the_trees-en-verb-HL0sXsno",
"links": [
[
"big picture",
"big picture"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) To discern an overall pattern from a mass of detail; to see the big picture, or the broader, more general situation."
],
"raw_tags": [
"in the negative"
],
"related": [
{
"word": "big picture"
},
{
"word": "bigger fish to fry"
},
{
"word": "bird's-eye view"
},
{
"word": "gestalt"
},
{
"word": "gist"
},
{
"word": "grand scheme"
},
{
"word": "not see for looking"
},
{
"word": "overview"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "the wood for the trees"
},
{
"word": "the woods for the trees"
},
{
"word": "the forest but for the trees"
},
{
"tags": [
"rare"
],
"word": "the forest through the trees"
},
{
"word": "the trees through the forest"
},
{
"word": "miss the wood for the trees"
},
{
"word": "miss the woods for the trees"
},
{
"sense": "in the negative",
"word": "miss the forest for the trees"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "因小見大"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "因小见大"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "見微知著"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "jiànwēizhīzhù",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "见微知著"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "nähdä metsä puilta"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "見樹不見林"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "jiàn shù bú jiàn lín",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "见树不见林"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "mángrénmōxiàng",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "盲人摸象"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "pro stromy nevidí les"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "ikke se skoven for bare træer"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "door de bomen het bos niet meer zien"
},
{
"code": "eo",
"lang": "Esperanto",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "pro multo da arboj arbaron ne vidi"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "l’arbre qui cache la forêt"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "den Wald vor lauter Bäumen nicht sehen"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "vlépoume to déndro kai chánoume to dásos",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "βλέπουμε το δένδρο και χάνουμε το δάσος"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"roman": "miróv 'etzím lo roím et hayá'ar",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "מֵרֹב עֵצִים לֹא רוֹאִים אֶת הַיַּעַר"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "nem látja a fától az erdőt"
},
{
"alt": "きをみてもりをみず",
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "ki o mite mori o mizu",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "木を見て森を見ず"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "木を見て森を見ず"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "ikke se skogen for bare trær"
},
{
"code": "nn",
"lang": "Norwegian Nynorsk",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "ikkje sjå skogen for berre tre"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "ver a floresta pelas árvores"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "a nu vedea pădurea din cauza copacilor"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"english": "various word order is possible",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "ne vídetʹ lésa za derévʹjami",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "не ви́деть ле́са за дере́вьями"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "od drveta ne videti šumu"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "од дрвета не видети шуму"
},
{
"code": "sl",
"lang": "Slovene",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "zaradi dreves ne videti gozda"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "no dejar los árboles ver el bosque"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "inte se skogen för alla träd"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-see the forest for the trees.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f2/En-au-see_the_forest_for_the_trees.ogg/En-au-see_the_forest_for_the_trees.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/En-au-see_the_forest_for_the_trees.ogg"
}
],
"word": "see the forest for the trees"
}
{
"etymology_text": "John Heywood documented the English use of the proverb in 1546.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "sees the forest for the trees",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "seeing the forest for the trees",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "saw the forest for the trees",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "seen the forest for the trees",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
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"args": {
"1": "see<,,saw,seen> the forest for the trees",
"head": "see the forest for the trees"
},
"expansion": "see the forest for the trees (third-person singular simple present sees the forest for the trees, present participle seeing the forest for the trees, simple past saw the forest for the trees, past participle seen the forest for the trees)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "big picture"
},
{
"word": "bigger fish to fry"
},
{
"word": "bird's-eye view"
},
{
"word": "gestalt"
},
{
"word": "gist"
},
{
"word": "grand scheme"
},
{
"word": "not see for looking"
},
{
"word": "overview"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English negative polarity items",
"English predicates",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"English verbs",
"Japanese terms with redundant script codes",
"Mandarin terms with non-redundant manual transliterations",
"Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
"Terms with Czech translations",
"Terms with Danish translations",
"Terms with Dutch translations",
"Terms with Esperanto translations",
"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with French translations",
"Terms with German translations",
"Terms with Greek translations",
"Terms with Hebrew translations",
"Terms with Hungarian translations",
"Terms with Japanese translations",
"Terms with Mandarin translations",
"Terms with Norwegian Bokmål translations",
"Terms with Norwegian Nynorsk translations",
"Terms with Portuguese translations",
"Terms with Romanian translations",
"Terms with Russian translations",
"Terms with Serbo-Croatian translations",
"Terms with Slovene translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations",
"Terms with Swedish translations",
"Undetermined terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Smith is good at detail, but can't see the forest for the trees.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1902, Emily Constance Baird Cook, Highways and Byways in London",
"text": "It is, indeed, the principal drawback to the study of London that she is too vast—that the student is ever in danger of \"not seeing the forest for the trees.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1916, Albert Einstein (tr. Robert W. Lawson), “Preface”, in Relativity: The Special and General Theory",
"text": "On the other hand, I have purposely treated the empirical physical foundations of the theory in a \"step-motherly\" fashion, so that readers unfamiliar with physics may not feel like the wanderer who was unable to see the forest for the trees.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1919, Louis Tracy, The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley, page 96",
"text": "Your only failing is that you can't see the forest for the trees.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To discern an overall pattern from a mass of detail; to see the big picture, or the broader, more general situation."
],
"links": [
[
"big picture",
"big picture"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) To discern an overall pattern from a mass of detail; to see the big picture, or the broader, more general situation."
],
"raw_tags": [
"in the negative"
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-see the forest for the trees.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f2/En-au-see_the_forest_for_the_trees.ogg/En-au-see_the_forest_for_the_trees.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/En-au-see_the_forest_for_the_trees.ogg"
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "the wood for the trees"
},
{
"word": "the woods for the trees"
},
{
"word": "the forest but for the trees"
},
{
"tags": [
"rare"
],
"word": "the forest through the trees"
},
{
"word": "the trees through the forest"
},
{
"sense": "in the negative",
"word": "miss the forest for the trees"
},
{
"word": "miss the wood for the trees"
},
{
"word": "miss the woods for the trees"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "因小見大"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "因小见大"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "見微知著"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "jiànwēizhīzhù",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "见微知著"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to discern overall pattern from details",
"word": "nähdä metsä puilta"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "見樹不見林"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "jiàn shù bú jiàn lín",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "见树不见林"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "mángrénmōxiàng",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "盲人摸象"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "pro stromy nevidí les"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "ikke se skoven for bare træer"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "door de bomen het bos niet meer zien"
},
{
"code": "eo",
"lang": "Esperanto",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "pro multo da arboj arbaron ne vidi"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "l’arbre qui cache la forêt"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "den Wald vor lauter Bäumen nicht sehen"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "vlépoume to déndro kai chánoume to dásos",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "βλέπουμε το δένδρο και χάνουμε το δάσος"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"roman": "miróv 'etzím lo roím et hayá'ar",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "מֵרֹב עֵצִים לֹא רוֹאִים אֶת הַיַּעַר"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "nem látja a fától az erdőt"
},
{
"alt": "きをみてもりをみず",
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "ki o mite mori o mizu",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "木を見て森を見ず"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "木を見て森を見ず"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "ikke se skogen for bare trær"
},
{
"code": "nn",
"lang": "Norwegian Nynorsk",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "ikkje sjå skogen for berre tre"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "ver a floresta pelas árvores"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "a nu vedea pădurea din cauza copacilor"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"english": "various word order is possible",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "ne vídetʹ lésa za derévʹjami",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "не ви́деть ле́са за дере́вьями"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "od drveta ne videti šumu"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "од дрвета не видети шуму"
},
{
"code": "sl",
"lang": "Slovene",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "zaradi dreves ne videti gozda"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "no dejar los árboles ver el bosque"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "to be overwhelmed by detail to the point where it obscures the overall situation",
"word": "inte se skogen för alla träd"
}
],
"word": "see the forest for the trees"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-06-20 using wiktextract (1b9bfc5 and 0136956). 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.