"drain the swamp" meaning in English

See drain the swamp in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: drains the swamp [present, singular, third-person], draining the swamp [participle, present], drained the swamp [participle, past], drained the swamp [past]
Etymology: First use appears c. 1899. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} drain the swamp (third-person singular simple present drains the swamp, present participle draining the swamp, simple past and past participle drained the swamp)
  1. (figurative, US politics) To eliminate the root causes of problems, especially to rid politics and government of evils, such as corruption and bureaucracy. Tags: US, figuratively Categories (topical): US politics
    Sense id: en-drain_the_swamp-en-verb-AJgCZ8QX Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Topics: government, politics

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for drain the swamp meaning in English (1.7kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "First use appears c. 1899.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "drains the swamp",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "draining the swamp",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drained the swamp",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drained the swamp",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "drain the swamp (third-person singular simple present drains the swamp, present participle draining the swamp, simple past and past participle drained the swamp)",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "US politics",
          "orig": "en:US politics",
          "parents": [
            "Politics",
            "United States",
            "Society",
            "North America",
            "All topics",
            "America",
            "Fundamental",
            "Earth",
            "Nature"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To eliminate the root causes of problems, especially to rid politics and government of evils, such as corruption and bureaucracy."
      ],
      "id": "en-drain_the_swamp-en-verb-AJgCZ8QX",
      "links": [
        [
          "eliminate",
          "eliminate"
        ],
        [
          "root cause",
          "root cause"
        ],
        [
          "problem",
          "problem"
        ],
        [
          "rid",
          "rid"
        ],
        [
          "politics",
          "politics"
        ],
        [
          "government",
          "government"
        ],
        [
          "evil",
          "evil"
        ],
        [
          "corruption",
          "corruption"
        ],
        [
          "bureaucracy",
          "bureaucracy"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative, US politics) To eliminate the root causes of problems, especially to rid politics and government of evils, such as corruption and bureaucracy."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "figuratively"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "politics"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "drain the swamp"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "First use appears c. 1899.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "drains the swamp",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "draining the swamp",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drained the swamp",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "drained the swamp",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "drain the swamp (third-person singular simple present drains the swamp, present participle draining the swamp, simple past and past participle drained the swamp)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "en:US politics"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To eliminate the root causes of problems, especially to rid politics and government of evils, such as corruption and bureaucracy."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "eliminate",
          "eliminate"
        ],
        [
          "root cause",
          "root cause"
        ],
        [
          "problem",
          "problem"
        ],
        [
          "rid",
          "rid"
        ],
        [
          "politics",
          "politics"
        ],
        [
          "government",
          "government"
        ],
        [
          "evil",
          "evil"
        ],
        [
          "corruption",
          "corruption"
        ],
        [
          "bureaucracy",
          "bureaucracy"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative, US politics) To eliminate the root causes of problems, especially to rid politics and government of evils, such as corruption and bureaucracy."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "figuratively"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "politics"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "drain the swamp"
}

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.