"flog a dead pony" meaning in English

See flog a dead pony in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: flogs a dead pony [present, singular, third-person], flogging a dead pony [participle, present], flogged a dead pony [participle, past], flogged a dead pony [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} flog a dead pony (third-person singular simple present flogs a dead pony, present participle flogging a dead pony, simple past and past participle flogged a dead pony)
  1. (idiomatic) To attempt to get more out of something that cannot give more; to attempt to arouse fresh interest in something that is either hopeless or already settled. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: beat a dead horse, flog a dead horse
    Sense id: en-flog_a_dead_pony-en-verb-aeMOFDQR Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for flog a dead pony meaning in English (1.9kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "flogs a dead pony",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "flogging a dead pony",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "flogged a dead pony",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "flogged a dead pony",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "flog a dead pony (third-person singular simple present flogs a dead pony, present participle flogging a dead pony, simple past and past participle flogged a dead pony)",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1994 August 17, Lois-ellin Datta, A Matter of Consensus (Working Paper), Washington: US Dept. of Education, →OCLC, ERIC ED379290, page 15",
          "text": "[…] much greater impact on actual practice when the topic wasn't flogging a dead pony (advocating a change already wide-spread) […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Sharron McClellan, The Midas Trap, New York: Silhouette Bombshell, page 23",
          "text": "Now was not the time to lose her temper. He was baiting her, and going over the Brazil incident was like flogging a dead pony. She was tired and the pony was past caring.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To attempt to get more out of something that cannot give more; to attempt to arouse fresh interest in something that is either hopeless or already settled."
      ],
      "id": "en-flog_a_dead_pony-en-verb-aeMOFDQR",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To attempt to get more out of something that cannot give more; to attempt to arouse fresh interest in something that is either hopeless or already settled."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "beat a dead horse"
        },
        {
          "word": "flog a dead horse"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "flog a dead pony"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "flogs a dead pony",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "flogging a dead pony",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "flogged a dead pony",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "flogged a dead pony",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "flog a dead pony (third-person singular simple present flogs a dead pony, present participle flogging a dead pony, simple past and past participle flogged a dead pony)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1994 August 17, Lois-ellin Datta, A Matter of Consensus (Working Paper), Washington: US Dept. of Education, →OCLC, ERIC ED379290, page 15",
          "text": "[…] much greater impact on actual practice when the topic wasn't flogging a dead pony (advocating a change already wide-spread) […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Sharron McClellan, The Midas Trap, New York: Silhouette Bombshell, page 23",
          "text": "Now was not the time to lose her temper. He was baiting her, and going over the Brazil incident was like flogging a dead pony. She was tired and the pony was past caring.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To attempt to get more out of something that cannot give more; to attempt to arouse fresh interest in something that is either hopeless or already settled."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To attempt to get more out of something that cannot give more; to attempt to arouse fresh interest in something that is either hopeless or already settled."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "beat a dead horse"
        },
        {
          "word": "flog a dead horse"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "flog a dead pony"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.