beat about the bush in English

Forms: beats about the bush [present, singular, third-person], beating about the bush [participle, present], beat about the bush [past], beaten about the bush [participle, past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Etymology: From medieval English hunting practices. Some men would whack bushes with sticks to scare birds out so that others could hunt them. Beating the bush directly could be dangerous. Head templates: {{en-verb|beat<,,beat,beaten> about the bush}} beat about the bush (third-person singular simple present beats about the bush, present participle beating about the bush, simple past beat about the bush, past participle beaten about the bush)

[Show JSON for post-processed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for post-processed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "From medieval English hunting practices. Some men would whack bushes with sticks to scare birds out so that others could hunt them. Beating the bush directly could be dangerous.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "beats about the bush",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beating about the bush",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat about the bush",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beaten about the bush",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "beat<,,beat,beaten> about the bush"
      },
      "expansion": "beat about the bush (third-person singular simple present beats about the bush, present participle beating about the bush, simple past beat about the bush, past participle beaten about the bush)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "beat around the bush"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 July 15, Mike Brown talks to Paul Clifton, “Leading London's \"hidden heroes\"”, in Rail, page 42",
          "text": "\"Meanwhile, we are sitting here starving. Let's not beat about the bush - we are absolutely living hand to mouth now on TfL.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of beat around the bush"
      ],
      "id": "en-beat_about_the_bush-en-verb-1~3sULR9",
      "links": [
        [
          "beat around the bush",
          "beat around the bush#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "beat about the bush"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "From medieval English hunting practices. Some men would whack bushes with sticks to scare birds out so that others could hunt them. Beating the bush directly could be dangerous.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "beats about the bush",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beating about the bush",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat about the bush",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beaten about the bush",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "beat<,,beat,beaten> about the bush"
      },
      "expansion": "beat about the bush (third-person singular simple present beats about the bush, present participle beating about the bush, simple past beat about the bush, past participle beaten about the bush)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "beat around the bush"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 July 15, Mike Brown talks to Paul Clifton, “Leading London's \"hidden heroes\"”, in Rail, page 42",
          "text": "\"Meanwhile, we are sitting here starving. Let's not beat about the bush - we are absolutely living hand to mouth now on TfL.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of beat around the bush"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "beat around the bush",
          "beat around the bush#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "beat about the bush"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.

"beat about the bush" meaning in English

Verb