"if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging" meaning in English

See if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Head templates: {{head|en|proverb|head=}} if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging, {{en-proverb}} if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging
  1. When finding oneself in a troubling situation, one should first make sure one is not making the situation worse by one's own actions before addressing all other causes. Synonyms: when you are in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging, when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging Related terms: when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp
    Sense id: en-if_you_find_yourself_in_a_hole,_the_first_thing_to_do_is_stop_digging-en-proverb-bPK226Pt Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English proverbs

Download JSON data for if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging meaning in English (1.3kB)

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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
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      "expansion": "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
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      "glosses": [
        "When finding oneself in a troubling situation, one should first make sure one is not making the situation worse by one's own actions before addressing all other causes."
      ],
      "id": "en-if_you_find_yourself_in_a_hole,_the_first_thing_to_do_is_stop_digging-en-proverb-bPK226Pt",
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "when you are in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"
        },
        {
          "word": "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"
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{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs"
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      "glosses": [
        "When finding oneself in a troubling situation, one should first make sure one is not making the situation worse by one's own actions before addressing all other causes."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "when you are in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"
    },
    {
      "word": "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"
    }
  ],
  "word": "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 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.

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.