"blow someone's cover" meaning in English

See blow someone's cover in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-blow someone's cover.ogg [Australia] Forms: blows someone's cover [present, singular, third-person], blowing someone's cover [participle, present], blew someone's cover [past], blown someone's cover [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|blow<,,blew,blown> someone's cover}} blow someone's cover (third-person singular simple present blows someone's cover, present participle blowing someone's cover, simple past blew someone's cover, past participle blown someone's cover)
  1. (idiomatic) To reveal that someone's behavior, situation, or identity has been fabricated or deliberately misrepresented for an ulterior motive. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-blow_someone's_cover-en-verb-LacFL526 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 48 52
  2. (reflexive, idiomatic) To reveal that one has fabricated or deliberately misrepresented one's own behavior, situation, or identity for an ulterior motive. Tags: idiomatic, reflexive
    Sense id: en-blow_someone's_cover-en-verb-e0wjfkrt Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 48 52

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for blow someone's cover meaning in English (4.0kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "blows someone's cover",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "blowing someone's cover",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "blew someone's cover",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "blown someone's cover",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "blow<,,blew,blown> someone's cover"
      },
      "expansion": "blow someone's cover (third-person singular simple present blows someone's cover, present participle blowing someone's cover, simple past blew someone's cover, past participle blown someone's cover)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "48 52",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2007 February 15, Andrew Marshall, “The Escape Artist”, in Time, retrieved 2015-07-06",
          "text": "Iskander's role as a G.A.M. operative was secret—until I unwittingly blew his cover that day.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 November 19, Katrin Bennhold, “A Tabloid ‘Fake Sheikh,’ Bane of Crooks and Royalty, Finds He’s Now the Story”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-07-06",
          "text": "Others have tried to blow his cover: George Galloway, a left-wing British politician and supporter of the Palestinian cause, published Mr. Mahmood’s photo on his website in 2006 and accused Mr. Mahmood of disguising himself as an Arab businessman and trying to entice him to make anti-Semitic comments over lunch.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 August 24, Payton Guion, “Rachel Dolezal steps down as local NAACP president amid race controversy”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2015-07-06",
          "text": "[O]ne of her adopted brothers said that she had asked him not to reveal that she is white. \"She took me aside and just told me not to blow her cover,\" Ezra Dolezal, one of her African American adopted siblings, told KREM-TV.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To reveal that someone's behavior, situation, or identity has been fabricated or deliberately misrepresented for an ulterior motive."
      ],
      "id": "en-blow_someone's_cover-en-verb-LacFL526",
      "links": [
        [
          "fabricate",
          "fabricate"
        ],
        [
          "deliberate",
          "deliberate"
        ],
        [
          "misrepresent",
          "misrepresent"
        ],
        [
          "ulterior motive",
          "ulterior motive"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To reveal that someone's behavior, situation, or identity has been fabricated or deliberately misrepresented for an ulterior motive."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "48 52",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1984 August 24, Lawrence Van Gelder, “The Jigsaw Man (1984): Review Summary”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-07-06",
          "text": "This spy film purports to be inspired by the true story of Kim Philby (1912-1988), a British intelligence officer and Soviet spy during the 1940s and '50s who gained international notoriety when he blew his cover and defected to the USSR in 1963.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To reveal that one has fabricated or deliberately misrepresented one's own behavior, situation, or identity for an ulterior motive."
      ],
      "id": "en-blow_someone's_cover-en-verb-e0wjfkrt",
      "links": [
        [
          "own",
          "own"
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(reflexive, idiomatic) To reveal that one has fabricated or deliberately misrepresented one's own behavior, situation, or identity for an ulterior motive."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "reflexive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-blow someone's cover.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c4/En-au-blow_someone%27s_cover.ogg/En-au-blow_someone%27s_cover.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/En-au-blow_someone%27s_cover.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
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  "word": "blow someone's cover"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "blows someone's cover",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "blowing someone's cover",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "blew someone's cover",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "blown someone's cover",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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      "args": {
        "1": "blow<,,blew,blown> someone's cover"
      },
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      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2007 February 15, Andrew Marshall, “The Escape Artist”, in Time, retrieved 2015-07-06",
          "text": "Iskander's role as a G.A.M. operative was secret—until I unwittingly blew his cover that day.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 November 19, Katrin Bennhold, “A Tabloid ‘Fake Sheikh,’ Bane of Crooks and Royalty, Finds He’s Now the Story”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-07-06",
          "text": "Others have tried to blow his cover: George Galloway, a left-wing British politician and supporter of the Palestinian cause, published Mr. Mahmood’s photo on his website in 2006 and accused Mr. Mahmood of disguising himself as an Arab businessman and trying to entice him to make anti-Semitic comments over lunch.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 August 24, Payton Guion, “Rachel Dolezal steps down as local NAACP president amid race controversy”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2015-07-06",
          "text": "[O]ne of her adopted brothers said that she had asked him not to reveal that she is white. \"She took me aside and just told me not to blow her cover,\" Ezra Dolezal, one of her African American adopted siblings, told KREM-TV.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To reveal that someone's behavior, situation, or identity has been fabricated or deliberately misrepresented for an ulterior motive."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "fabricate",
          "fabricate"
        ],
        [
          "deliberate",
          "deliberate"
        ],
        [
          "misrepresent",
          "misrepresent"
        ],
        [
          "ulterior motive",
          "ulterior motive"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To reveal that someone's behavior, situation, or identity has been fabricated or deliberately misrepresented for an ulterior motive."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1984 August 24, Lawrence Van Gelder, “The Jigsaw Man (1984): Review Summary”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-07-06",
          "text": "This spy film purports to be inspired by the true story of Kim Philby (1912-1988), a British intelligence officer and Soviet spy during the 1940s and '50s who gained international notoriety when he blew his cover and defected to the USSR in 1963.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To reveal that one has fabricated or deliberately misrepresented one's own behavior, situation, or identity for an ulterior motive."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "own",
          "own"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(reflexive, idiomatic) To reveal that one has fabricated or deliberately misrepresented one's own behavior, situation, or identity for an ulterior motive."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "reflexive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "en-au-blow someone's cover.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c4/En-au-blow_someone%27s_cover.ogg/En-au-blow_someone%27s_cover.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/En-au-blow_someone%27s_cover.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "blow someone's cover"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 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.