"be on to" meaning in English

See be on to in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-be on to.ogg [Australia] Forms: is on to [present, singular, third-person], being on to [participle, present], was on to [past], been on to [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|be<is,being,was,been> on to}} be on to (third-person singular simple present is on to, present participle being on to, simple past was on to, past participle been on to)
  1. (idiomatic) To figure out; to realize the truth. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: catch on to, cotton on to

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for be on to meaning in English (1.6kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "is on to",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "being on to",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "was on to",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "been on to",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "be<is,being,was,been> on to"
      },
      "expansion": "be on to (third-person singular simple present is on to, present participle being on to, simple past was on to, past participle been on to)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (on)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (to)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I was planning it as a surprise, but I think he is on to me.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To figure out; to realize the truth."
      ],
      "id": "en-be_on_to-en-verb-BYdE7sY8",
      "links": [
        [
          "figure",
          "figure"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To figure out; to realize the truth."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "catch on to"
        },
        {
          "word": "cotton on to"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-be on to.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a9/En-au-be_on_to.ogg/En-au-be_on_to.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/En-au-be_on_to.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "be on to"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "is on to",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "being on to",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "was on to",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "been on to",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "be<is,being,was,been> on to"
      },
      "expansion": "be on to (third-person singular simple present is on to, present participle being on to, simple past was on to, past participle been on to)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "catch on to"
    },
    {
      "word": "cotton on to"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrasal verbs",
        "English phrasal verbs with particle (on)",
        "English phrasal verbs with particle (to)",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I was planning it as a surprise, but I think he is on to me.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To figure out; to realize the truth."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "figure",
          "figure"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To figure out; to realize the truth."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-be on to.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a9/En-au-be_on_to.ogg/En-au-be_on_to.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/En-au-be_on_to.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "be on to"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). 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.