See between the devil and the deep blue sea in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
},
{
"form": "the devil and the deep blue sea",
"tags": [
"alternative"
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "prep_phrase",
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"name": "Idioms involving colors",
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{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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264,
303
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"ref": "1908, John Cameron, Association Football and How to Play It, Chapter 11:",
"text": "Talking about the old Players' Union, it reminds me that at one meeting we had, a player stated that if a club had a horse they wanted to part with, some one would have to find the horse in fodder until the negotiations were finished. A player is during that time between the devil and the deep blue sea, and has to entirely support himself during that period, and I have known many excellent players give up the game for this reason.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
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[
145,
184
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"ref": "1922, W. C. Tuttle, The Spark of Skeeter Bill:",
"text": "“I hope it's a funny hangin',” said Skeeter, serious again. “'Pears to me that it's a even bet whether I get hung or killed with a bullet. Kinda between the devil and the deep blue sea, as my dad used to say. I ain't got much choice, I reckon, unless it is to get out of town, and I hates to be herded.”",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Between undesirable alternatives."
],
"id": "en-between_the_devil_and_the_deep_blue_sea-en-prep_phrase-rMGQ0i7n",
"links": [
[
"undesirable",
"undesirable"
],
[
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Between undesirable alternatives."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "devil to pay, and no pitch hot"
},
{
"word": "devil to pay"
},
{
"word": "the devil to pay and no pitch hot or ready"
},
{
"english": "the seam between garboard strake and the keel; a seam on wooden boats",
"translation": "the seam between garboard strake and the keel; a seam on wooden boats",
"word": "devil seam"
},
{
"word": "between a rock and a hard place"
},
{
"word": "Hobson's choice"
},
{
"word": "lesser of two evils"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between a rock and a hard place"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between Scylla and Charybdis"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between the devil and the deep blue sea"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"UK",
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between the hammer and the anvil"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between two fires"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "damned if one does and damned if one doesn't"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "doomed if you do"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "doomed if you don't"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"Australia",
"UK",
"dated",
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "in a cleft stick"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"UK",
"obsolete"
],
"word": "in bad bread"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "on the horns of a dilemma"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cc/En-au-caught_between_the_devil_and_the_deep_blue_sea.ogg/En-au-caught_between_the_devil_and_the_deep_blue_sea.ogg.mp3",
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"tags": [
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}
],
"word": "between the devil and the deep blue sea"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
},
{
"form": "the devil and the deep blue sea",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "prep_phrase",
"related": [
{
"word": "devil to pay, and no pitch hot"
},
{
"word": "devil to pay"
},
{
"word": "the devil to pay and no pitch hot or ready"
},
{
"english": "the seam between garboard strake and the keel; a seam on wooden boats",
"translation": "the seam between garboard strake and the keel; a seam on wooden boats",
"word": "devil seam"
},
{
"word": "between a rock and a hard place"
},
{
"word": "Hobson's choice"
},
{
"word": "lesser of two evils"
}
],
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"ref": "1908, John Cameron, Association Football and How to Play It, Chapter 11:",
"text": "Talking about the old Players' Union, it reminds me that at one meeting we had, a player stated that if a club had a horse they wanted to part with, some one would have to find the horse in fodder until the negotiations were finished. A player is during that time between the devil and the deep blue sea, and has to entirely support himself during that period, and I have known many excellent players give up the game for this reason.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
145,
184
]
],
"ref": "1922, W. C. Tuttle, The Spark of Skeeter Bill:",
"text": "“I hope it's a funny hangin',” said Skeeter, serious again. “'Pears to me that it's a even bet whether I get hung or killed with a bullet. Kinda between the devil and the deep blue sea, as my dad used to say. I ain't got much choice, I reckon, unless it is to get out of town, and I hates to be herded.”",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Between undesirable alternatives."
],
"links": [
[
"undesirable",
"undesirable"
],
[
"alternative",
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]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Between undesirable alternatives."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between a rock and a hard place"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between Scylla and Charybdis"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between the devil and the deep blue sea"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"UK",
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between the hammer and the anvil"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "between two fires"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "damned if one does and damned if one doesn't"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "doomed if you do"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "doomed if you don't"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"Australia",
"UK",
"dated",
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "in a cleft stick"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"UK",
"obsolete"
],
"word": "in bad bread"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:in a dilemma",
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "on the horns of a dilemma"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
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"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cc/En-au-caught_between_the_devil_and_the_deep_blue_sea.ogg/En-au-caught_between_the_devil_and_the_deep_blue_sea.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/En-au-caught_between_the_devil_and_the_deep_blue_sea.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
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],
"word": "between the devil and the deep blue sea"
}
Download raw JSONL data for between the devil and the deep blue sea meaning in English (3.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). 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.