See balls to the wall in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "First attested in the 1960s in the context of aviation, in reference to ball-shaped grips on an aircraft's engine controls (typically throttle, prop pitch and fuel mixture). Pushing these \"balls to the wall\" would put the aircraft at maximum thrust. Analogous to pedal to the metal.\nNot related to the term balls-out, which refers to steam engine machinery.\nNot related to the vulgar sense of balls (“testicles”).",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "balls to the wall (not comparable)",
"name": "en-adv"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adv",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2006, Michael D. Brown, Testimony before the US Senate Homeland Security Committee:",
"text": "I told the staff...the day before the hurricane struck that I expected them to cut every piece of red tape, do everything they could, that it was balls to the wall, that I didn't want to hear anybody say that we couldn't do anything—to do everything they humanly could to respond.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021 November 1, Samantha Hissong, quoting Gordon Goner, “How Four NFT Novices Created a Billion-Dollar Ecosystem of Cartoon Apes”, in Rolling Stone:",
"text": "“I always go balls to the wall,” founding Ape Gordon Goner tells Rolling Stone over Zoom.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023 June 15, Kat Moon, “Ashley Park’s Main Character Energy From ‘Joy Ride’ Is Here To Stay: ‘I’m Treating Myself Like A Lead Now’”, in Women's Health:",
"text": "“Asian women on-screen, especially in America and Hollywood, have been so sexualized and fetishized for the benefit of other people’s stories or jokes,” Ashley says. “And we’re like, ‘We’re gonna go balls to the wall, further than anyone’s gone with Asian women.’”",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"With maximum effort or commitment."
],
"id": "en-balls_to_the_wall-en-adv-KPgWDOsd",
"links": [
[
"maximum",
"maximum"
],
[
"effort",
"effort"
],
[
"commitment",
"commitment"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) With maximum effort or commitment."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "all out"
}
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "27 73",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "18 82",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "10 90",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Full throttle; (at) maximum speed."
],
"id": "en-balls_to_the_wall-en-adv-8dTmFs8S",
"links": [
[
"Full throttle",
"full throttle#English"
],
[
"speed",
"speed"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) Full throttle; (at) maximum speed."
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "8 92",
"word": "go to the wall"
},
{
"_dis1": "8 92",
"word": "pedal to the metal"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "30 70",
"word": "balls-to-the-wall"
},
{
"_dis1": "30 70",
"word": "balls to the walls"
},
{
"_dis1": "30 70",
"word": "balls-to-the-walls"
},
{
"_dis1": "30 70",
"word": "balls-to-the-waltz"
}
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
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"audio": "en-au-balls to the wall.ogg",
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"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/En-au-balls_to_the_wall.ogg"
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"word": "balls to the wall"
}
{
"categories": [
"English adverbs",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English rhyming phrases",
"English uncomparable adverbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "First attested in the 1960s in the context of aviation, in reference to ball-shaped grips on an aircraft's engine controls (typically throttle, prop pitch and fuel mixture). Pushing these \"balls to the wall\" would put the aircraft at maximum thrust. Analogous to pedal to the metal.\nNot related to the term balls-out, which refers to steam engine machinery.\nNot related to the vulgar sense of balls (“testicles”).",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "balls to the wall (not comparable)",
"name": "en-adv"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adv",
"related": [
{
"word": "go to the wall"
},
{
"word": "pedal to the metal"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English idioms",
"English slang",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2006, Michael D. Brown, Testimony before the US Senate Homeland Security Committee:",
"text": "I told the staff...the day before the hurricane struck that I expected them to cut every piece of red tape, do everything they could, that it was balls to the wall, that I didn't want to hear anybody say that we couldn't do anything—to do everything they humanly could to respond.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021 November 1, Samantha Hissong, quoting Gordon Goner, “How Four NFT Novices Created a Billion-Dollar Ecosystem of Cartoon Apes”, in Rolling Stone:",
"text": "“I always go balls to the wall,” founding Ape Gordon Goner tells Rolling Stone over Zoom.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2023 June 15, Kat Moon, “Ashley Park’s Main Character Energy From ‘Joy Ride’ Is Here To Stay: ‘I’m Treating Myself Like A Lead Now’”, in Women's Health:",
"text": "“Asian women on-screen, especially in America and Hollywood, have been so sexualized and fetishized for the benefit of other people’s stories or jokes,” Ashley says. “And we’re like, ‘We’re gonna go balls to the wall, further than anyone’s gone with Asian women.’”",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"With maximum effort or commitment."
],
"links": [
[
"maximum",
"maximum"
],
[
"effort",
"effort"
],
[
"commitment",
"commitment"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) With maximum effort or commitment."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "all out"
}
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English idioms",
"English slang"
],
"glosses": [
"Full throttle; (at) maximum speed."
],
"links": [
[
"Full throttle",
"full throttle#English"
],
[
"speed",
"speed"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) Full throttle; (at) maximum speed."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-balls to the wall.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/72/En-au-balls_to_the_wall.ogg/En-au-balls_to_the_wall.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/En-au-balls_to_the_wall.ogg"
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],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "balls-to-the-wall"
},
{
"word": "balls to the walls"
},
{
"word": "balls-to-the-walls"
},
{
"word": "balls-to-the-waltz"
}
],
"word": "balls to the wall"
}
Download raw JSONL data for balls to the wall meaning in English (3.3kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.
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