See speak truth to power on Wiktionary
{
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"tags": [
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},
{
"form": "speaking truth to power",
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]
},
{
"form": "spoke truth to power",
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},
{
"form": "spoken truth to power",
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"head_templates": [
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"args": {
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},
"expansion": "speak truth to power (third-person singular simple present speaks truth to power, present participle speaking truth to power, simple past spoke truth to power, past participle spoken truth to power)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
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"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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"ref": "2011 July 18, John Cassidy, “Mastering the Machine”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN:",
"text": "He was tired of corporate politics and craved a setting where people spoke truth to power, but, he said, it took him a while to get used to dealing with Dalio.",
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"ref": "2025 May 10, Massimo Faggioli, quotee, “Chicagoan pope not afraid of speaking truth to power in US”, in FT Weekend, page 3:",
"text": "“Once, we needed to have a pope who would speak in favour of human rights in Russia and China,” said Massimo Faggioli […]. “You now need someone who can speak truth to American power.”",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To address facts to an authority or a superior, especially in the face of risk to oneself."
],
"id": "en-speak_truth_to_power-en-verb-0YFL5Xsj",
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[
"in the face of",
"in the face of"
]
],
"related": [
{
"word": "truth will out"
},
{
"word": "elephant in the room"
},
{
"word": "emperor's new clothes"
},
{
"word": "plain as the nose on one's face"
},
{
"word": "tell it like it is"
},
{
"word": "yes man"
}
]
}
],
"word": "speak truth to power"
}
{
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},
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{
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"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
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{
"word": "truth will out"
},
{
"word": "elephant in the room"
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{
"word": "emperor's new clothes"
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{
"word": "plain as the nose on one's face"
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"word": "tell it like it is"
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{
"word": "yes man"
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],
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"ref": "2011 July 18, John Cassidy, “Mastering the Machine”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN:",
"text": "He was tired of corporate politics and craved a setting where people spoke truth to power, but, he said, it took him a while to get used to dealing with Dalio.",
"type": "quote"
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{
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"ref": "2025 May 10, Massimo Faggioli, quotee, “Chicagoan pope not afraid of speaking truth to power in US”, in FT Weekend, page 3:",
"text": "“Once, we needed to have a pope who would speak in favour of human rights in Russia and China,” said Massimo Faggioli […]. “You now need someone who can speak truth to American power.”",
"type": "quote"
}
],
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"To address facts to an authority or a superior, especially in the face of risk to oneself."
],
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}
],
"word": "speak truth to power"
}
Download raw JSONL data for speak truth to power meaning in All languages combined (2.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (3dadd05 and f1c2b61). 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.