"facts on the ground" meaning in English

See facts on the ground in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-facts on the ground.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: Back-formation from put facts on the ground Etymology templates: {{back-formation|en|put facts on the ground}} Back-formation from put facts on the ground Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} facts on the ground pl (plural only)
  1. (idiomatic) The situation in reality as opposed to in the abstract. Tags: idiomatic, plural, plural-only
    Sense id: en-facts_on_the_ground-en-noun-VTdlWHrD Categories (other): English back-formations, English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum Disambiguation of English back-formations: 53 23 24 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 56 22 22 Disambiguation of English pluralia tantum: 52 25 24
  2. (literally) Some aspects of the situation in a particular location. Tags: literally, plural, plural-only
    Sense id: en-facts_on_the_ground-en-noun-VG80yG0C
  3. (idiomatic, euphemistic) The presence of military forces in a territory, rendering moot any debate over ownership. Tags: euphemistic, idiomatic, plural, plural-only Related terms: boots on the ground, fait accompli, de facto, status quo ante bellum, ex factis jus oritur, realpolitik, revanchism, ground truth
    Sense id: en-facts_on_the_ground-en-noun-9tFF6pbR Categories (other): English euphemisms

Download JSON data for facts on the ground meaning in English (3.2kB)

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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "put facts on the ground"
      },
      "expansion": "Back-formation from put facts on the ground",
      "name": "back-formation"
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  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from put facts on the ground",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
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      "expansion": "facts on the ground pl (plural only)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "53 23 24",
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            "Nouns",
            "Lemmas"
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      "glosses": [
        "The situation in reality as opposed to in the abstract."
      ],
      "id": "en-facts_on_the_ground-en-noun-VTdlWHrD",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) The situation in reality as opposed to in the abstract."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
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    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Some aspects of the situation in a particular location."
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        "(literally) Some aspects of the situation in a particular location."
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        {
          "ref": "2011 February 20, Harriet Sherwood, quoting Ian McEwan, “Ian McEwan attacks 'great injustice' in Israel”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "The author referred to \"continued evictions and relentless purchases of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, the process of the right of return granted to Jews but not to Arabs, the so-called facts on the ground of hardening concrete over the future, over future generations of Palestinian and Israeli children who will inherit the conflict and find it even more difficult to resolve than it is today.\"",
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        "The presence of military forces in a territory, rendering moot any debate over ownership."
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        "(idiomatic, euphemistic) The presence of military forces in a territory, rendering moot any debate over ownership."
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          "_dis1": "23 14 63",
          "word": "boots on the ground"
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          "_dis1": "23 14 63",
          "word": "fait accompli"
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        {
          "_dis1": "23 14 63",
          "word": "de facto"
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        {
          "_dis1": "23 14 63",
          "word": "status quo ante bellum"
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        {
          "_dis1": "23 14 63",
          "word": "ex factis jus oritur"
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          "_dis1": "23 14 63",
          "word": "realpolitik"
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          "_dis1": "23 14 63",
          "word": "revanchism"
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/En-au-facts_on_the_ground.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "word": "facts on the ground"
}
{
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      "word": "boots on the ground"
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    {
      "word": "fait accompli"
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    {
      "word": "de facto"
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    {
      "word": "status quo ante bellum"
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    {
      "word": "ex factis jus oritur"
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    {
      "word": "realpolitik"
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    {
      "word": "revanchism"
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    {
      "word": "ground truth"
    }
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        "The situation in reality as opposed to in the abstract."
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        "(idiomatic) The situation in reality as opposed to in the abstract."
      ],
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    },
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        "Some aspects of the situation in a particular location."
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          "text": "The author referred to \"continued evictions and relentless purchases of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, the process of the right of return granted to Jews but not to Arabs, the so-called facts on the ground of hardening concrete over the future, over future generations of Palestinian and Israeli children who will inherit the conflict and find it even more difficult to resolve than it is today.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "glosses": [
        "The presence of military forces in a territory, rendering moot any debate over ownership."
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        "(idiomatic, euphemistic) The presence of military forces in a territory, rendering moot any debate over ownership."
      ],
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). 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.