"stand on the shoulders of giants" meaning in All languages combined

See stand on the shoulders of giants on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Forms: stands on the shoulders of giants [present, singular, third-person], standing on the shoulders of giants [participle, present], stood on the shoulders of giants [participle, past], stood on the shoulders of giants [past]
Etymology: Extracted from dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants. Often attributed to Isaac Newton (see quotations), but in other forms already in use earlier. Head templates: {{en-verb|stand<,,stood> on the shoulders of giants}} stand on the shoulders of giants (third-person singular simple present stands on the shoulders of giants, present participle standing on the shoulders of giants, simple past and past participle stood on the shoulders of giants)
  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To build on the discoveries of others before one. Wikipedia link: Isaac Newton Tags: idiomatic, intransitive Derived forms: stand on someone's shoulders
    Sense id: en-stand_on_the_shoulders_of_giants-en-verb-NSvxznDa Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for stand on the shoulders of giants meaning in All languages combined (2.6kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Extracted from dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants. Often attributed to Isaac Newton (see quotations), but in other forms already in use earlier.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "stands on the shoulders of giants",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "standing on the shoulders of giants",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "stood on the shoulders of giants",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "stood on the shoulders of giants",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "stand<,,stood> on the shoulders of giants"
      },
      "expansion": "stand on the shoulders of giants (third-person singular simple present stands on the shoulders of giants, present participle standing on the shoulders of giants, simple past and past participle stood on the shoulders of giants)",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "stand on someone's shoulders"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1675 February 5, Isaac Newton, “Newton to Hooke”, in H. W. Turnbull, editor, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, Volume I: 1661–1675, Cambridge University Press, published 1959, page 416",
          "text": "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1987 January 27, Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address",
          "text": "In this 200th anniversary year of our Constitution, you and I stand on the shoulders of giants—men whose words and deeds put wind in the sails of freedom.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Sam Williams, chapter 10, in Free as in Freedom",
          "text": "\"In the western scientific tradition we stand on the shoulders of giants,\" says Young, echoing both Torvalds and Sir Isaac Newton before him.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, C. M. C. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia, page xv",
          "text": "It is useful, though, to remember the conclusion of the maxim: we stand on the shoulders of giants to see better and farther than they.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To build on the discoveries of others before one."
      ],
      "id": "en-stand_on_the_shoulders_of_giants-en-verb-NSvxznDa",
      "links": [
        [
          "build on",
          "build on"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, intransitive) To build on the discoveries of others before one."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Isaac Newton"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "stand on the shoulders of giants"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "stand on someone's shoulders"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Extracted from dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants. Often attributed to Isaac Newton (see quotations), but in other forms already in use earlier.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "stands on the shoulders of giants",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "standing on the shoulders of giants",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "stood on the shoulders of giants",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "stood on the shoulders of giants",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "stand<,,stood> on the shoulders of giants"
      },
      "expansion": "stand on the shoulders of giants (third-person singular simple present stands on the shoulders of giants, present participle standing on the shoulders of giants, simple past and past participle stood on the shoulders of giants)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1675 February 5, Isaac Newton, “Newton to Hooke”, in H. W. Turnbull, editor, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, Volume I: 1661–1675, Cambridge University Press, published 1959, page 416",
          "text": "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1987 January 27, Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address",
          "text": "In this 200th anniversary year of our Constitution, you and I stand on the shoulders of giants—men whose words and deeds put wind in the sails of freedom.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Sam Williams, chapter 10, in Free as in Freedom",
          "text": "\"In the western scientific tradition we stand on the shoulders of giants,\" says Young, echoing both Torvalds and Sir Isaac Newton before him.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, C. M. C. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia, page xv",
          "text": "It is useful, though, to remember the conclusion of the maxim: we stand on the shoulders of giants to see better and farther than they.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To build on the discoveries of others before one."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "build on",
          "build on"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, intransitive) To build on the discoveries of others before one."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Isaac Newton"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "stand on the shoulders of giants"
}

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.