See Peter principle in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Formulated by Laurence J. Peter.",
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"name": "Management",
"orig": "en:Management",
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],
"glosses": [
"The theory that people in an organization tend to rise (be promoted) to the level of their incompetence."
],
"id": "en-Peter_principle-en-name-mR4kNnC4",
"links": [
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"incompetence",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(management) The theory that people in an organization tend to rise (be promoted) to the level of their incompetence."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "Dilbert principle"
},
{
"word": "empty suit"
},
{
"word": "fail upwards"
}
],
"topics": [
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],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"lang_code": "ar",
"roman": "mabdaʔ bītar",
"sense": "theory",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "مَبْدَأ بِيتَر"
},
{
"code": "ar",
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"lang_code": "ar",
"roman": "mabdaʔ pītar",
"sense": "theory",
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"word": "مَبْدَأ پِيتَر"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"lang_code": "fi",
"sense": "theory",
"word": "Peterin periaate"
},
{
"code": "de",
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"lang_code": "de",
"sense": "theory",
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"neuter"
],
"word": "Peter-Prinzip"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"lang_code": "is",
"sense": "theory",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Péturslögmálið"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"sense": "theory",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "zasada Petera"
}
]
}
],
"word": "Peter principle"
}
{
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{
"word": "empty suit"
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"word": "fail upwards"
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],
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"The theory that people in an organization tend to rise (be promoted) to the level of their incompetence."
],
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"management",
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],
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"theory",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(management) The theory that people in an organization tend to rise (be promoted) to the level of their incompetence."
],
"topics": [
"management"
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"lang_code": "ar",
"roman": "mabdaʔ bītar",
"sense": "theory",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "مَبْدَأ بِيتَر"
},
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"lang_code": "ar",
"roman": "mabdaʔ pītar",
"sense": "theory",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "مَبْدَأ پِيتَر"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"lang_code": "fi",
"sense": "theory",
"word": "Peterin periaate"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"lang_code": "de",
"sense": "theory",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Peter-Prinzip"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"lang_code": "is",
"sense": "theory",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Péturslögmálið"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"sense": "theory",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "zasada Petera"
}
],
"word": "Peter principle"
}
Download raw JSONL data for Peter principle meaning in English (2.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). 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.