have it both ways in English

Audio: en-au-have it both ways.ogg

Forms: has it both ways [present, singular, third-person], having it both ways [participle, present], had it both ways [participle, past], had it both ways [past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> it both ways}} have it both ways (third-person singular simple present has it both ways, present participle having it both ways, simple past and past participle had it both ways)

Inflected forms

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has it both ways",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having it both ways",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had it both ways",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had it both ways",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> it both ways"
      },
      "expansion": "have it both ways (third-person singular simple present has it both ways, present participle having it both ways, simple past and past participle had it both ways)",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with placeholder \"it\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of have one's cake and eat it too"
      ],
      "id": "en-have_it_both_ways-en-verb-2sJBHhG8",
      "links": [
        [
          "have one's cake and eat it too",
          "have one's cake and eat it too#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Synonym of have one's cake and eat it too"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "have one's cake and eat it too"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have it both ways.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d8/En-au-have_it_both_ways.ogg/En-au-have_it_both_ways.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/En-au-have_it_both_ways.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have it both ways"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has it both ways",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having it both ways",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had it both ways",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had it both ways",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> it both ways"
      },
      "expansion": "have it both ways (third-person singular simple present has it both ways, present participle having it both ways, simple past and past participle had it both ways)",
      "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 placeholder \"it\"",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of have one's cake and eat it too"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "have one's cake and eat it too",
          "have one's cake and eat it too#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Synonym of have one's cake and eat it too"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "have one's cake and eat it too"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have it both ways.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d8/En-au-have_it_both_ways.ogg/En-au-have_it_both_ways.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/En-au-have_it_both_ways.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have it both ways"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). 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.

"have it both ways" meaning in English

Verb

Inflected forms