See go through the motions in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "goes through the motions",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "going through the motions",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "went through the motions",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "gone through the motions",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "go<goes,,went,gone> through the motions"
},
"expansion": "go through the motions (third-person singular simple present goes through the motions, present participle going through the motions, simple past went through the motions, past participle gone through the motions)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
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"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1905, Mark Twain, chapter 3, in The $30,000 Bequest:",
"text": "Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and the force of habit required her to go through the motions.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1919, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, chapter 15, in Rainbow Valley, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Frederick A[bbott] Stokes Company, →OCLC:",
"text": "They went through the motions of living, but they didn't live.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2003 July 8, Jason Zweig, Benjamin Graham, “Get Rich Slowly: How to Pick a Financial Adviser”, in Time:",
"text": "In screening an adviser, these should be your goals:\n—To determine whether he or she cares about helping clients or just goes through the motions […]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2005 June 12, Michael Kinsley, “No Smoking Gun”, in Washington Post:",
"text": "The whole \"weapons of mass destruction\" concern was phony from the start, and the drama about inspections was just kabuki: going through the motions.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To do something in a mechanical, unreflective manner, especially as a matter of routine and without commitment or enthusiasm; to perform a task perfunctorily."
],
"id": "en-go_through_the_motions-en-verb-HEh1cspE",
"links": [
[
"mechanical",
"mechanical"
],
[
"unreflective",
"unreflective"
],
[
"routine",
"routine"
],
[
"commitment",
"commitment"
],
[
"enthusiasm",
"enthusiasm"
],
[
"perform",
"perform"
],
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"perfunctorily",
"perfunctorily"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To do something in a mechanical, unreflective manner, especially as a matter of routine and without commitment or enthusiasm; to perform a task perfunctorily."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "autopilot"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zǒu guòchǎng",
"sense": "do something in a mechanical manner",
"word": "走過場 /走过场"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "fūyǎn",
"sense": "do something in a mechanical manner",
"word": "敷衍"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "do something in a mechanical manner",
"word": "suorittaa mekaanisesti"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "do something in a mechanical manner",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "markować"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-go through the motions.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0f/En-au-go_through_the_motions.ogg/En-au-go_through_the_motions.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/En-au-go_through_the_motions.ogg"
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],
"word": "go through the motions"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "goes through the motions",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "going through the motions",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "went through the motions",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "gone through the motions",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "go<goes,,went,gone> through the motions"
},
"expansion": "go through the motions (third-person singular simple present goes through the motions, present participle going through the motions, simple past went through the motions, past participle gone through the motions)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "autopilot"
}
],
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1905, Mark Twain, chapter 3, in The $30,000 Bequest:",
"text": "Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and the force of habit required her to go through the motions.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1919, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, chapter 15, in Rainbow Valley, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Frederick A[bbott] Stokes Company, →OCLC:",
"text": "They went through the motions of living, but they didn't live.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2003 July 8, Jason Zweig, Benjamin Graham, “Get Rich Slowly: How to Pick a Financial Adviser”, in Time:",
"text": "In screening an adviser, these should be your goals:\n—To determine whether he or she cares about helping clients or just goes through the motions […]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2005 June 12, Michael Kinsley, “No Smoking Gun”, in Washington Post:",
"text": "The whole \"weapons of mass destruction\" concern was phony from the start, and the drama about inspections was just kabuki: going through the motions.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To do something in a mechanical, unreflective manner, especially as a matter of routine and without commitment or enthusiasm; to perform a task perfunctorily."
],
"links": [
[
"mechanical",
"mechanical"
],
[
"unreflective",
"unreflective"
],
[
"routine",
"routine"
],
[
"commitment",
"commitment"
],
[
"enthusiasm",
"enthusiasm"
],
[
"perform",
"perform"
],
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"perfunctorily",
"perfunctorily"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To do something in a mechanical, unreflective manner, especially as a matter of routine and without commitment or enthusiasm; to perform a task perfunctorily."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
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"audio": "en-au-go through the motions.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0f/En-au-go_through_the_motions.ogg/En-au-go_through_the_motions.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/En-au-go_through_the_motions.ogg"
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"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zǒu guòchǎng",
"sense": "do something in a mechanical manner",
"word": "走過場 /走过场"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "fūyǎn",
"sense": "do something in a mechanical manner",
"word": "敷衍"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "do something in a mechanical manner",
"word": "suorittaa mekaanisesti"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "do something in a mechanical manner",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "markować"
}
],
"word": "go through the motions"
}
Download raw JSONL data for go through the motions meaning in English (3.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (c15a5ce and 5c11237). 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.
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