"duck and dive" meaning in English

See duck and dive in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: ducks and dives [present, singular, third-person], ducking and diving [participle, present], ducked and dived [participle, past], ducked and dived [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|duck<> and dive<>}} duck and dive (third-person singular simple present ducks and dives, present participle ducking and diving, simple past and past participle ducked and dived)
  1. (UK, colloquial) To operate in a skilfully shifty or evasive manner. Tags: UK, colloquial

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "ducks and dives",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ducking and diving",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ducked and dived",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ducked and dived",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "duck<> and dive<>"
      },
      "expansion": "duck and dive (third-person singular simple present ducks and dives, present participle ducking and diving, simple past and past participle ducked and dived)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English coordinated pairs",
          "parents": [
            "Coordinated pairs",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2021 January 12, Robert Kitson, “Is it morally right for rugby to host the Six Nations in a pandemic?”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "So what next? For now, at least, the prevailing wisdom in Europe is that people need something to divert them from the ongoing nightmares elsewhere. […] Best, some insist, to keep the show on the road and then duck and dive in the event of further Covid-19 issues.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To operate in a skilfully shifty or evasive manner."
      ],
      "id": "en-duck_and_dive-en-verb-LFcagbin",
      "links": [
        [
          "operate",
          "operate"
        ],
        [
          "skilful",
          "skilful"
        ],
        [
          "shifty",
          "shifty"
        ],
        [
          "evasive",
          "evasive"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, colloquial) To operate in a skilfully shifty or evasive manner."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "colloquial"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "duck and dive"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "ducks and dives",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ducking and diving",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ducked and dived",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "ducked and dived",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "duck<> and dive<>"
      },
      "expansion": "duck and dive (third-person singular simple present ducks and dives, present participle ducking and diving, simple past and past participle ducked and dived)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English alliterative phrases",
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English coordinated pairs",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2021 January 12, Robert Kitson, “Is it morally right for rugby to host the Six Nations in a pandemic?”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "So what next? For now, at least, the prevailing wisdom in Europe is that people need something to divert them from the ongoing nightmares elsewhere. […] Best, some insist, to keep the show on the road and then duck and dive in the event of further Covid-19 issues.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To operate in a skilfully shifty or evasive manner."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "operate",
          "operate"
        ],
        [
          "skilful",
          "skilful"
        ],
        [
          "shifty",
          "shifty"
        ],
        [
          "evasive",
          "evasive"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, colloquial) To operate in a skilfully shifty or evasive manner."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "colloquial"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "duck and dive"
}

Download raw JSONL data for duck and dive meaning in English (1.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.