burn one's boats in English

Forms: burns one's boats [present, singular, third-person], burning one's boats [participle, present], burned one's boats [participle, past], burned one's boats [past], burnt one's boats [participle, past], burnt one's boats [past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Etymology: * Perhaps in reference to Tariq Ibn Ziyad, who gave the order to burn his own ships when he landed in Gibraltar, beginning the Islamic conquest of Spain in 711. * Perhaps in reference to Hernán Cortés, who gave the order to destroy his own ships (in reality, by sinking them) when he landed in Veracruz to begin his conquest in 1519. Head templates: {{en-verb|*|past2=burnt one's boats}} burn one's boats (third-person singular simple present burns one's boats, present participle burning one's boats, simple past and past participle burned one's boats or burnt one's boats)

[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": "* Perhaps in reference to Tariq Ibn Ziyad, who gave the order to burn his own ships when he landed in Gibraltar, beginning the Islamic conquest of Spain in 711.\n* Perhaps in reference to Hernán Cortés, who gave the order to destroy his own ships (in reality, by sinking them) when he landed in Veracruz to begin his conquest in 1519.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "burns one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burning one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burned one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burned one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burnt one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burnt one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "past2": "burnt one's boats"
      },
      "expansion": "burn one's boats (third-person singular simple present burns one's boats, present participle burning one's boats, simple past and past participle burned one's boats or burnt one's boats)",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cut oneself off from all chance of retreat; to stake everything on success."
      ],
      "id": "en-burn_one's_boats-en-verb-xO0xU~58",
      "links": [
        [
          "retreat",
          "retreat"
        ],
        [
          "stake",
          "stake"
        ],
        [
          "success",
          "success"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "burn one's bridges"
        },
        {
          "word": "damn the torpedoes"
        },
        {
          "word": "go for broke"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Hernán Cortés",
        "Tariq Ibn Ziyad"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "burn one's boats"
}

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

{
  "etymology_text": "* Perhaps in reference to Tariq Ibn Ziyad, who gave the order to burn his own ships when he landed in Gibraltar, beginning the Islamic conquest of Spain in 711.\n* Perhaps in reference to Hernán Cortés, who gave the order to destroy his own ships (in reality, by sinking them) when he landed in Veracruz to begin his conquest in 1519.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "burns one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burning one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burned one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burned one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burnt one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "burnt one's boats",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "past2": "burnt one's boats"
      },
      "expansion": "burn one's boats (third-person singular simple present burns one's boats, present participle burning one's boats, simple past and past participle burned one's boats or burnt one's boats)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "burn one's bridges"
    },
    {
      "word": "damn the torpedoes"
    },
    {
      "word": "go for broke"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cut oneself off from all chance of retreat; to stake everything on success."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "retreat",
          "retreat"
        ],
        [
          "stake",
          "stake"
        ],
        [
          "success",
          "success"
        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Hernán Cortés",
        "Tariq Ibn Ziyad"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "burn one's boats"
}

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.

"burn one's boats" meaning in English

Verb