"jump through hoops" meaning in English

See jump through hoops in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: jumps through hoops [present, singular, third-person], jumping through hoops [participle, present], jumped through hoops [participle, past], jumped through hoops [past]
Etymology: Reminiscent of a circus animal performing tricks by jumping through hoops. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} jump through hoops (third-person singular simple present jumps through hoops, present participle jumping through hoops, simple past and past participle jumped through hoops)
  1. (idiomatic) To put forth great effort to meet requirements, usually arbitrary, set by someone. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: go through hoops, leap through hoops

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for jump through hoops meaning in English (2.8kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Reminiscent of a circus animal performing tricks by jumping through hoops.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "jumps through hoops",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jumping through hoops",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jumped through hoops",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jumped through hoops",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "jump through hoops (third-person singular simple present jumps through hoops, present participle jumping through hoops, simple past and past participle jumped through hoops)",
      "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 entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010, Brad Johnson, Tammy Maxson McElroy, The Edutainer: Connecting the Art and Science of Teaching, page 141",
          "text": "If learning is deemed valuable and important to the student, then the educator doesn't need a scripted curriculum or a fad initiative that has students and the educator jumping through hoops.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Jason Brennan, Lisa Hill, Compulsory Voting: For and Against, page 19",
          "text": "If a government says to citizens, “We will punish you for abstaining, unless you jump through the following legal hoops,” it is still coercing citizens.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Kevin J. Mahoney, Ellen K. Mahoney, Michelle Putnam, Self-Direction in Long Term Services and Supports",
          "text": "Caregivers also described having to “jump through hoops” to accomplish what they needed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "They really made the salesman jump through hoops before buying anything."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To put forth great effort to meet requirements, usually arbitrary, set by someone."
      ],
      "id": "en-jump_through_hoops-en-verb-mBP4bER~",
      "links": [
        [
          "great",
          "great"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "meet",
          "meet"
        ],
        [
          "requirement",
          "requirement"
        ],
        [
          "arbitrary",
          "arbitrary"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To put forth great effort to meet requirements, usually arbitrary, set by someone."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "go through hoops"
        },
        {
          "word": "leap through hoops"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "jump through hoops"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Reminiscent of a circus animal performing tricks by jumping through hoops.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "jumps through hoops",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jumping through hoops",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jumped through hoops",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "jumped through hoops",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "jump through hoops (third-person singular simple present jumps through hoops, present participle jumping through hoops, simple past and past participle jumped through hoops)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010, Brad Johnson, Tammy Maxson McElroy, The Edutainer: Connecting the Art and Science of Teaching, page 141",
          "text": "If learning is deemed valuable and important to the student, then the educator doesn't need a scripted curriculum or a fad initiative that has students and the educator jumping through hoops.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Jason Brennan, Lisa Hill, Compulsory Voting: For and Against, page 19",
          "text": "If a government says to citizens, “We will punish you for abstaining, unless you jump through the following legal hoops,” it is still coercing citizens.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Kevin J. Mahoney, Ellen K. Mahoney, Michelle Putnam, Self-Direction in Long Term Services and Supports",
          "text": "Caregivers also described having to “jump through hoops” to accomplish what they needed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "They really made the salesman jump through hoops before buying anything."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To put forth great effort to meet requirements, usually arbitrary, set by someone."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "great",
          "great"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "meet",
          "meet"
        ],
        [
          "requirement",
          "requirement"
        ],
        [
          "arbitrary",
          "arbitrary"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To put forth great effort to meet requirements, usually arbitrary, set by someone."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "go through hoops"
    },
    {
      "word": "leap through hoops"
    }
  ],
  "word": "jump through hoops"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 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.

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.