See yank someone's chain on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "yanks someone's chain",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "yanking someone's chain",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "yanked someone's chain",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "yanked someone's chain",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "jerk someone's chain",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
},
{
"form": "pull someone's chain",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "yank someone's chain (third-person singular simple present yanks someone's chain, present participle yanking someone's chain, simple past and past participle yanked someone's chain)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English links with manual fragments",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "82 18",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "83 17",
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{
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],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Coordinate term: get someone's goat"
},
{
"text": "Near-synonyms: poke, prod"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
77,
95
]
],
"ref": "2006, James A. McKenna, Beyond Bluffs: Master the Mysteries of Poker, →ISBN, page 198:",
"text": "So, be careful what you are paying attention to. If it looks like someone is yanking your chain, he or she probably is.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
30,
46
]
],
"ref": "2008, Tom Morrisey, In High Places, →ISBN, page 198:",
"text": "“For the same reason you were yanking my chain about the double ropes,” I said. “You want to see if I'm going to be any help to you or a total idiot when it comes to this retail thing.”",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
18,
32
]
],
"ref": "2012, Alison Fraser, His Mistress's Secret, →ISBN:",
"text": "It was so easy to yank his chain, Tiree smirked to herself, as she dialled Les's London flat.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To tease someone; to lead someone on; to goad someone into overreacting."
],
"id": "en-yank_someone's_chain-en-verb-VCYypGhl",
"links": [
[
"tease",
"tease"
],
[
"goad",
"goad"
],
[
"overreact",
"overreact"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal, idiomatic) To tease someone; to lead someone on; to goad someone into overreacting."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pull someone's leg"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see yank, chain."
],
"id": "en-yank_someone's_chain-en-verb-8TiMzzSM",
"links": [
[
"yank",
"yank#English"
],
[
"chain",
"chain#English"
]
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-yank someone's chain.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/44/En-au-yank_someone%27s_chain.ogg/En-au-yank_someone%27s_chain.ogg.mp3",
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],
"word": "yank someone's chain"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "yanks someone's chain",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "yanking someone's chain",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "yanked someone's chain",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "yanked someone's chain",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "jerk someone's chain",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
},
{
"form": "pull someone's chain",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "yank someone's chain (third-person singular simple present yanks someone's chain, present participle yanking someone's chain, simple past and past participle yanked someone's chain)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English informal terms",
"English links with manual fragments",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Coordinate term: get someone's goat"
},
{
"text": "Near-synonyms: poke, prod"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
77,
95
]
],
"ref": "2006, James A. McKenna, Beyond Bluffs: Master the Mysteries of Poker, →ISBN, page 198:",
"text": "So, be careful what you are paying attention to. If it looks like someone is yanking your chain, he or she probably is.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
30,
46
]
],
"ref": "2008, Tom Morrisey, In High Places, →ISBN, page 198:",
"text": "“For the same reason you were yanking my chain about the double ropes,” I said. “You want to see if I'm going to be any help to you or a total idiot when it comes to this retail thing.”",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
18,
32
]
],
"ref": "2012, Alison Fraser, His Mistress's Secret, →ISBN:",
"text": "It was so easy to yank his chain, Tiree smirked to herself, as she dialled Les's London flat.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To tease someone; to lead someone on; to goad someone into overreacting."
],
"links": [
[
"tease",
"tease"
],
[
"goad",
"goad"
],
[
"overreact",
"overreact"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal, idiomatic) To tease someone; to lead someone on; to goad someone into overreacting."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pull someone's leg"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see yank, chain."
],
"links": [
[
"yank",
"yank#English"
],
[
"chain",
"chain#English"
]
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-yank someone's chain.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/44/En-au-yank_someone%27s_chain.ogg/En-au-yank_someone%27s_chain.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/En-au-yank_someone%27s_chain.ogg"
}
],
"word": "yank someone's chain"
}
Download raw JSONL data for yank someone's chain meaning in All languages combined (2.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (5ee713e 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.