"cover one's bases" meaning in English

See cover one's bases in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-cover one's bases.ogg [Australia] Forms: covers one's bases [present, singular, third-person], covering one's bases [participle, present], covered one's bases [participle, past], covered one's bases [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=cover one's bases}} cover one's bases (third-person singular simple present covers one's bases, present participle covering one's bases, simple past and past participle covered one's bases)
  1. (idiomatic) To be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: cover all of one's bases, cover all the bases, cover the bases
    Sense id: en-cover_one's_bases-en-verb-6BpviDGf Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for cover one's bases meaning in English (1.7kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "covers one's bases",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covering one's bases",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covered one's bases",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covered one's bases",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "cover one's bases"
      },
      "expansion": "cover one's bases (third-person singular simple present covers one's bases, present participle covering one's bases, simple past and past participle covered one's bases)",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "She eats a balanced diet, but takes vitamin pills anyway, to cover her bases."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely."
      ],
      "id": "en-cover_one's_bases-en-verb-6BpviDGf",
      "links": [
        [
          "thorough",
          "thorough"
        ],
        [
          "prepare",
          "prepare"
        ],
        [
          "completely",
          "completely"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "cover all of one's bases"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover all the bases"
        },
        {
          "word": "cover the bases"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-cover one's bases.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ac/En-au-cover_one%27s_bases.ogg/En-au-cover_one%27s_bases.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/En-au-cover_one%27s_bases.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cover one's bases"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "covers one's bases",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covering one's bases",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covered one's bases",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "covered one's bases",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "cover one's bases"
      },
      "expansion": "cover one's bases (third-person singular simple present covers one's bases, present participle covering one's bases, simple past and past participle covered one's bases)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "She eats a balanced diet, but takes vitamin pills anyway, to cover her bases."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "thorough",
          "thorough"
        ],
        [
          "prepare",
          "prepare"
        ],
        [
          "completely",
          "completely"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be thorough; to prepare thoroughly or completely."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-cover one's bases.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ac/En-au-cover_one%27s_bases.ogg/En-au-cover_one%27s_bases.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/En-au-cover_one%27s_bases.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "cover all of one's bases"
    },
    {
      "word": "cover all the bases"
    },
    {
      "word": "cover the bases"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cover one's bases"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.