See ax to grind in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"ref": "1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 4, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 61:",
"text": "“See,” Koteks said, “if you can get them to drop their clause on patents. That, lady, is my ax to grind.”",
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{
"ref": "1976 July 8, New Scientist, volume 71, number 1008, page 77:",
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"(American spelling) A proposition or point of view to advocate, especially motivated by self-interest."
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"code": "nl",
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"sense": "proposition or point of view",
"word": "een appeltje te schillen"
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"word": "intressi"
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"english": "to have an ax to grind",
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"sense": "proposition or point of view",
"word": "tochrais ar do cheirtlín féin"
},
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"word": "carta da giocare"
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"code": "it",
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"ref": "2019 February 27, David Seidenberg, “A Tikkun for Tikkun Olam? How ‘To Heal the World?’ Corrupts Debate & Endangers Judaism”, in Jewish Journal:",
"text": "If one is not just writing history but also trying to condemn and “demolish” one’s enemy, as Neumann is, you need a deeper level of introspection, and a high standard of proof. If not, it’s better to let “silence be a fence for wisdom.” (Pirkei Avot 3:13) It’s not possible to maintain the curiosity and openness you need for real research if you have such a big ax to grind.",
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"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "1976 July 8, New Scientist, volume 71, number 1008, page 77:",
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"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "proposition or point of view",
"word": "een appeltje te schillen"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "proposition or point of view",
"word": "intressi"
},
{
"code": "fr",
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"sense": "proposition or point of view",
"word": "intention cachée"
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"sense": "proposition or point of view",
"word": "intentions cachées"
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"english": "to have an ax to grind",
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"sense": "proposition or point of view",
"word": "tochrais ar do cheirtlín féin"
},
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"word": "ax to grind"
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"text": "If one is not just writing history but also trying to condemn and “demolish” one’s enemy, as Neumann is, you need a deeper level of introspection, and a high standard of proof. If not, it’s better to let “silence be a fence for wisdom.” (Pirkei Avot 3:13) It’s not possible to maintain the curiosity and openness you need for real research if you have such a big ax to grind.",
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"synonyms": [
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"word": "axe to grind"
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"word": "ax to grind"
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Download raw JSONL data for ax to grind meaning in English (5.3kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English 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.