See drop the ball in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "An allusion to the rules of such games as baseball, American football or cricket wherein literally dropping the ball would be a mistake.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "drops the ball",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "dropping the ball",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "dropped the ball",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "dropped the ball",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "drop the ball (third-person singular simple present drops the ball, present participle dropping the ball, simple past and past participle dropped the ball)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "59 41",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "61 39",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "61 39",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "59 41",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Dutch translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "54 46",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "51 49",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1996 Dec. 13, Peter Stack, \"Tom and ‘Jerry’ Make a Great Team\" (film review of Jerry Maguire), San Francisco Chronicle (retrieved 21 Sept 2013)",
"text": "The movie ought to sputter out here, but Crowe and Cruise don't drop the ball."
}
],
"glosses": [
"To fail in one's responsibilities or duties, or to make a mistake, especially at a critical point or when the result is very negative."
],
"id": "en-drop_the_ball-en-verb--dEdm87C",
"links": [
[
"fail",
"fail"
],
[
"responsibilities",
"responsibility"
],
[
"duties",
"duty"
],
[
"mistake",
"mistake"
],
[
"critical",
"critical"
],
[
"negative",
"negative"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To fail in one's responsibilities or duties, or to make a mistake, especially at a critical point or when the result is very negative."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"word": "een steek laten vallen"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"word": "tunaroida"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"tags": [
"colloquial"
],
"word": "mokata"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"tags": [
"colloquial"
],
"word": "munata"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "kusta"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"word": "pisar na bola"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "30 70",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "43 57",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "54 46",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "51 49",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see drop, ball."
],
"id": "en-drop_the_ball-en-verb-Ftmd3ECc",
"links": [
[
"drop",
"drop#English"
],
[
"ball",
"ball#English"
]
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "9 91",
"word": "fumble"
},
{
"_dis1": "9 91",
"word": "take one's eye off the ball"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "9 91",
"word": "fall on one's face"
},
{
"_dis1": "9 91",
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "fuck up"
},
{
"_dis1": "9 91",
"word": "screw the pooch"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-drop the ball.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/9a/En-au-drop_the_ball.ogg/En-au-drop_the_ball.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/En-au-drop_the_ball.ogg"
}
],
"word": "drop the ball"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English verbs",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Dutch translations",
"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with Portuguese translations"
],
"etymology_text": "An allusion to the rules of such games as baseball, American football or cricket wherein literally dropping the ball would be a mistake.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "drops the ball",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "dropping the ball",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "dropped the ball",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "dropped the ball",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "drop the ball (third-person singular simple present drops the ball, present participle dropping the ball, simple past and past participle dropped the ball)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "fumble"
},
{
"word": "take one's eye off the ball"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1996 Dec. 13, Peter Stack, \"Tom and ‘Jerry’ Make a Great Team\" (film review of Jerry Maguire), San Francisco Chronicle (retrieved 21 Sept 2013)",
"text": "The movie ought to sputter out here, but Crowe and Cruise don't drop the ball."
}
],
"glosses": [
"To fail in one's responsibilities or duties, or to make a mistake, especially at a critical point or when the result is very negative."
],
"links": [
[
"fail",
"fail"
],
[
"responsibilities",
"responsibility"
],
[
"duties",
"duty"
],
[
"mistake",
"mistake"
],
[
"critical",
"critical"
],
[
"negative",
"negative"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To fail in one's responsibilities or duties, or to make a mistake, especially at a critical point or when the result is very negative."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see drop, ball."
],
"links": [
[
"drop",
"drop#English"
],
[
"ball",
"ball#English"
]
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-drop the ball.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/9a/En-au-drop_the_ball.ogg/En-au-drop_the_ball.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/En-au-drop_the_ball.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "fall on one's face"
},
{
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "fuck up"
},
{
"word": "screw the pooch"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"word": "een steek laten vallen"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"word": "tunaroida"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"tags": [
"colloquial"
],
"word": "mokata"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"tags": [
"colloquial"
],
"word": "munata"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "kusta"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "fail in one’s responsibilities",
"word": "pisar na bola"
}
],
"word": "drop the ball"
}
Download raw JSONL data for drop the ball meaning in English (3.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (bb46d54 and 0c3c9f6). 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.