"Pickett's charge" meaning in English

See Pickett's charge in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: Pickett's charges [plural], Pickett's Charge [alternative]
Etymology: A reference to an event during the American Civil War, wherein 16,000 Confederate infantrymen attacked Union positions; the attack failed, with several thousand Confederate casualties. Head templates: {{en-noun|head=Pickett's charge}} Pickett's charge (plural Pickett's charges)
  1. A valiant but futile frontal assault. Synonyms (valiant, futile frontal assault): Charge of the Light Brigade
    Sense id: en-Pickett's_charge-en-noun-E5bPJAz8 Disambiguation of 'valiant, futile frontal assault': 97 2 1
  2. A major battle.
    Sense id: en-Pickett's_charge-en-noun-9kBCbwT4
  3. A bad decision. Categories (topical): American Civil War
    Sense id: en-Pickett's_charge-en-noun-PoAAwlwm Disambiguation of American Civil War: 6 5 89 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 20 29 51 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 8 37 56 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 6 10 85
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: cold steel

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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  "etymology_text": "A reference to an event during the American Civil War, wherein 16,000 Confederate infantrymen attacked Union positions; the attack failed, with several thousand Confederate casualties.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Pickett's charges",
      "tags": [
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    },
    {
      "form": "Pickett's Charge",
      "tags": [
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "Pickett's charge"
      },
      "expansion": "Pickett's charge (plural Pickett's charges)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0",
      "word": "cold steel"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A valiant but futile frontal assault."
      ],
      "id": "en-Pickett's_charge-en-noun-E5bPJAz8",
      "links": [
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        [
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        ],
        [
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        ],
        [
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        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "97 2 1",
          "sense": "valiant, futile frontal assault",
          "word": "Charge of the Light Brigade"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A major battle."
      ],
      "id": "en-Pickett's_charge-en-noun-9kBCbwT4",
      "links": [
        [
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        ],
        [
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    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "20 29 51",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "8 37 56",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "6 10 85",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "6 5 89",
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          "orig": "en:American Civil War",
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            "Society",
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            "Military",
            "Violence",
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            "Human activity",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Fundamental",
            "Human"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A bad decision."
      ],
      "id": "en-Pickett's_charge-en-noun-PoAAwlwm",
      "links": [
        [
          "decision",
          "decision"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Pickett's charge"
  ],
  "word": "Pickett's charge"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English eponyms",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:American Civil War"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "A reference to an event during the American Civil War, wherein 16,000 Confederate infantrymen attacked Union positions; the attack failed, with several thousand Confederate casualties.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Pickett's charges",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "Pickett's Charge",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "Pickett's charge"
      },
      "expansion": "Pickett's charge (plural Pickett's charges)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "cold steel"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A valiant but futile frontal assault."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "valiant",
          "valiant"
        ],
        [
          "futile",
          "futile"
        ],
        [
          "frontal",
          "frontal"
        ],
        [
          "assault",
          "assault"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A major battle."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "major",
          "major"
        ],
        [
          "battle",
          "battle"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A bad decision."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "decision",
          "decision"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "valiant, futile frontal assault",
      "word": "Charge of the Light Brigade"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Pickett's charge"
  ],
  "word": "Pickett's charge"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-29 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-20 using wiktextract (4eaa824 and ea19a0a). 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.