down to the wire in English

[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 horse racing: approaching the wire that marks the winning line.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "down to the wire (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He was almost done with the paper, but tomorrow's due date meant it would be down to the wire."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "At the very end of a process or project, especially one with a fast-approaching deadline."
      ],
      "id": "en-down_to_the_wire-en-adj-HL9fYWQs",
      "links": [
        [
          "end",
          "end"
        ],
        [
          "process",
          "process"
        ],
        [
          "project",
          "project"
        ],
        [
          "deadline",
          "deadline"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) At the very end of a process or project, especially one with a fast-approaching deadline."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "last minute"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-down to the wire.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f3/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "down to the wire"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "From horse racing: approaching the wire that marks the winning line.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "down to the wire (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adv"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He was almost done with the paper, but tomorrow's due date meant it would come down to the wire.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 February 27, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 0-0 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport",
          "text": "Liverpool created a host of chances and had a Joel Matip goal ruled out for a foul and offside in an incident-packed game that went right down to the wire before Jurgen Klopp's side prevailed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "At the very end of a process or project, especially one with a fast-approaching deadline."
      ],
      "id": "en-down_to_the_wire-en-adv-HL9fYWQs",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) At the very end of a process or project, especially one with a fast-approaching deadline."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "down to the short strokes"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "not-comparable"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "at the very end",
          "word": "in dirittura d'arrivo"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-down to the wire.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f3/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "down to the wire"
}

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

{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English adverbs",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English uncomparable adjectives",
    "English uncomparable adverbs"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From horse racing: approaching the wire that marks the winning line.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "down to the wire (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He was almost done with the paper, but tomorrow's due date meant it would be down to the wire."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "At the very end of a process or project, especially one with a fast-approaching deadline."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "end",
          "end"
        ],
        [
          "process",
          "process"
        ],
        [
          "project",
          "project"
        ],
        [
          "deadline",
          "deadline"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) At the very end of a process or project, especially one with a fast-approaching deadline."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-down to the wire.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f3/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "last minute"
    }
  ],
  "word": "down to the wire"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English adverbs",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English uncomparable adjectives",
    "English uncomparable adverbs"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From horse racing: approaching the wire that marks the winning line.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "down to the wire (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adv"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He was almost done with the paper, but tomorrow's due date meant it would come down to the wire.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 February 27, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 0-0 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport",
          "text": "Liverpool created a host of chances and had a Joel Matip goal ruled out for a foul and offside in an incident-packed game that went right down to the wire before Jurgen Klopp's side prevailed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "At the very end of a process or project, especially one with a fast-approaching deadline."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) At the very end of a process or project, especially one with a fast-approaching deadline."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-down to the wire.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f3/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/En-au-down_to_the_wire.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "down to the short strokes"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "at the very end",
      "word": "in dirittura d'arrivo"
    }
  ],
  "word": "down to the wire"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 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.

"down to the wire" meaning in English

Adjective

Adverb