See when the chips are down on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From the game of poker, in which chips laid down on the table are staked.",
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{
"text": "He wasn't a very talented musician but, when the chips were down, he played well."
},
{
"text": "When the chips are down, you need to make tough decisions."
},
{
"ref": "1950 June 26, Alex H. Washburn, “Korea — Sound of War”, in Hope Star, volume 51, number 214, Hope, Ark., page 1, column 1:",
"text": "The armed forces of North Korea, which borders on and is allied with Russian Manchuria, marched into the U. S.-sponsored South Korea Republic over the week-end — and the chips are down for American prestige throughout the Far East.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1968 December 8, Henry Cosby, Sylvia Moy, Stevie Wonder (lyrics and music), “I’d Be a Fool Right Now”, in For Once in My Life, performed by Stevie Wonder:",
"text": "They say that when the chips are down, girl\nYour love won't stay so long, my friend\nBut they don't know that your sweet loving, babe\nHas been around through thick and thin",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023 December 6, Sam Lansky, “Person of Year 2023 : Taylor Swift”, in Time:",
"text": "“Lucian and Monte basically said to me, ‘Whatever you turn in, we will be proud to put out. We give you 100% creative freedom and trust.’” It was exactly what she needed to hear most when the chips were down.",
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}
],
"glosses": [
"When the pressure is on; when the situation is urgent or critical."
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"(idiomatic) When the pressure is on; when the situation is urgent or critical."
],
"related": [
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"word": "in a pinch"
},
{
"word": "when push comes to shove"
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{
"word": "when the gloves come off"
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"text": "He wasn't a very talented musician but, when the chips were down, he played well."
},
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"text": "When the chips are down, you need to make tough decisions."
},
{
"ref": "1950 June 26, Alex H. Washburn, “Korea — Sound of War”, in Hope Star, volume 51, number 214, Hope, Ark., page 1, column 1:",
"text": "The armed forces of North Korea, which borders on and is allied with Russian Manchuria, marched into the U. S.-sponsored South Korea Republic over the week-end — and the chips are down for American prestige throughout the Far East.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1968 December 8, Henry Cosby, Sylvia Moy, Stevie Wonder (lyrics and music), “I’d Be a Fool Right Now”, in For Once in My Life, performed by Stevie Wonder:",
"text": "They say that when the chips are down, girl\nYour love won't stay so long, my friend\nBut they don't know that your sweet loving, babe\nHas been around through thick and thin",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023 December 6, Sam Lansky, “Person of Year 2023 : Taylor Swift”, in Time:",
"text": "“Lucian and Monte basically said to me, ‘Whatever you turn in, we will be proud to put out. We give you 100% creative freedom and trust.’” It was exactly what she needed to hear most when the chips were down.",
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"word": "when the chips are down"
}
Download raw JSONL data for when the chips are down meaning in All languages combined (2.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). 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.