"grease the wheels" meaning in English

See grease the wheels in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-grease the wheels.ogg [Australia] Forms: greases the wheels [present, singular, third-person], greasing the wheels [participle, present], greased the wheels [participle, past], greased the wheels [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=grease the wheels}} grease the wheels (third-person singular simple present greases the wheels, present participle greasing the wheels, simple past and past participle greased the wheels)
  1. (idiomatic) To create conditions likely to produce or hasten favorable future developments. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: pave the way, set the stage
    Sense id: en-grease_the_wheels-en-verb-OFfEJuWU Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for grease the wheels meaning in English (2.7kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "greases the wheels",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "greasing the wheels",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "greased the wheels",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "greased the wheels",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "grease the wheels"
      },
      "expansion": "grease the wheels (third-person singular simple present greases the wheels, present participle greasing the wheels, simple past and past participle greased the wheels)",
      "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": "1992 March 14, Celestine Bohlen, “Corruption Grows Greedy in Russia”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-05-18",
          "text": "Once a way of greasing the wheels of a gruesome bureaucracy, bribery has now become part of the cost of doing business.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 July 5, Mark Dampier, “The Analyst: Why it's time to get back into bonds”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 2014-05-18",
          "text": "[T]he banks will feel more comfortable about lending to each other, which is something we desperately need to help grease the wheels of the economy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 June 8, Roya Wolverson, “Why is Chronic Joblessness on the Rise?”, in Time, retrieved 2014-05-18",
          "text": "Worker mobility, which greases the wheels of hiring, dropped off sharply last year.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 February 21, Johnny Martin, “Top tips to ensure you get paid on time”, in The Guardan, UK, retrieved 2014-05-18",
          "text": "People will be more inclined to pay sooner if they can pay less – even a small discount might be enough to speed up the process and help grease the wheels.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To create conditions likely to produce or hasten favorable future developments."
      ],
      "id": "en-grease_the_wheels-en-verb-OFfEJuWU",
      "links": [
        [
          "create",
          "create"
        ],
        [
          "produce",
          "produce"
        ],
        [
          "hasten",
          "hasten"
        ],
        [
          "favorable",
          "favorable"
        ],
        [
          "development",
          "development"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To create conditions likely to produce or hasten favorable future developments."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "pave the way"
        },
        {
          "word": "set the stage"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-grease the wheels.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/8c/En-au-grease_the_wheels.ogg/En-au-grease_the_wheels.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/En-au-grease_the_wheels.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "grease the wheels"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "greases the wheels",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "greasing the wheels",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "greased the wheels",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "greased the wheels",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "grease the wheels"
      },
      "expansion": "grease the wheels (third-person singular simple present greases the wheels, present participle greasing the wheels, simple past and past participle greased the wheels)",
      "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 audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1992 March 14, Celestine Bohlen, “Corruption Grows Greedy in Russia”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-05-18",
          "text": "Once a way of greasing the wheels of a gruesome bureaucracy, bribery has now become part of the cost of doing business.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 July 5, Mark Dampier, “The Analyst: Why it's time to get back into bonds”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 2014-05-18",
          "text": "[T]he banks will feel more comfortable about lending to each other, which is something we desperately need to help grease the wheels of the economy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 June 8, Roya Wolverson, “Why is Chronic Joblessness on the Rise?”, in Time, retrieved 2014-05-18",
          "text": "Worker mobility, which greases the wheels of hiring, dropped off sharply last year.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 February 21, Johnny Martin, “Top tips to ensure you get paid on time”, in The Guardan, UK, retrieved 2014-05-18",
          "text": "People will be more inclined to pay sooner if they can pay less – even a small discount might be enough to speed up the process and help grease the wheels.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To create conditions likely to produce or hasten favorable future developments."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "create",
          "create"
        ],
        [
          "produce",
          "produce"
        ],
        [
          "hasten",
          "hasten"
        ],
        [
          "favorable",
          "favorable"
        ],
        [
          "development",
          "development"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To create conditions likely to produce or hasten favorable future developments."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-grease the wheels.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/8c/En-au-grease_the_wheels.ogg/En-au-grease_the_wheels.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/En-au-grease_the_wheels.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "pave the way"
    },
    {
      "word": "set the stage"
    }
  ],
  "word": "grease the wheels"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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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