"loosen the purse strings" meaning in English

See loosen the purse strings in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-loosen the purse strings.ogg [Australia] Forms: loosens the purse strings [present, singular, third-person], loosening the purse strings [participle, present], loosened the purse strings [participle, past], loosened the purse strings [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} loosen the purse strings (third-person singular simple present loosens the purse strings, present participle loosening the purse strings, simple past and past participle loosened the purse strings)
  1. (idiomatic, colloquial) To increase spending or allow increased spending; to relax control of spending. Tags: colloquial, idiomatic Synonyms: loosen the pursestrings, loosen the purse-strings Related terms: hold the purse strings, loosen the apron strings Translations (to increase or allow to increase spending): hellittää kukkaron nyörejä (Finnish), allentare i cordoni della borsa (Italian)
    Sense id: en-loosen_the_purse_strings-en-verb-FwUoDDQD Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for loosen the purse strings meaning in English (2.8kB)

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "tighten the purse strings"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "loosens the purse strings",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosening the purse strings",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosened the purse strings",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosened the purse strings",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "loosen the purse strings (third-person singular simple present loosens the purse strings, present participle loosening the purse strings, simple past and past participle loosened the purse strings)",
      "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": "1848, Parliament of Great Britain, “The Parliamentary debates”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 96, page cdlvii",
          "text": "He thought the effect of this language from the Prime Minister had been to loosen the purse-strings of the Treasury.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, The 9/11 Commission report, final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (authorized edition), National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, page 358",
          "text": "Proponents of the counterterrorism agenda might respond by being less inclined to loosen the purse strings than they would have been if offered a convincing...",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To increase spending or allow increased spending; to relax control of spending."
      ],
      "id": "en-loosen_the_purse_strings-en-verb-FwUoDDQD",
      "links": [
        [
          "spending",
          "spending"
        ],
        [
          "allow",
          "allow"
        ],
        [
          "relax",
          "relax"
        ],
        [
          "control",
          "control"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, colloquial) To increase spending or allow increased spending; to relax control of spending."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "hold the purse strings"
        },
        {
          "word": "loosen the apron strings"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "loosen the pursestrings"
        },
        {
          "word": "loosen the purse-strings"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to increase or allow to increase spending",
          "word": "hellittää kukkaron nyörejä"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "to increase or allow to increase spending",
          "word": "allentare i cordoni della borsa"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-loosen the purse strings.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a0/En-au-loosen_the_purse_strings.ogg/En-au-loosen_the_purse_strings.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/En-au-loosen_the_purse_strings.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "loosen the purse strings"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "tighten the purse strings"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "loosens the purse strings",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosening the purse strings",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosened the purse strings",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosened the purse strings",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "loosen the purse strings (third-person singular simple present loosens the purse strings, present participle loosening the purse strings, simple past and past participle loosened the purse strings)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "hold the purse strings"
    },
    {
      "word": "loosen the apron strings"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "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": "1848, Parliament of Great Britain, “The Parliamentary debates”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 96, page cdlvii",
          "text": "He thought the effect of this language from the Prime Minister had been to loosen the purse-strings of the Treasury.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, The 9/11 Commission report, final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (authorized edition), National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, page 358",
          "text": "Proponents of the counterterrorism agenda might respond by being less inclined to loosen the purse strings than they would have been if offered a convincing...",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To increase spending or allow increased spending; to relax control of spending."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "spending",
          "spending"
        ],
        [
          "allow",
          "allow"
        ],
        [
          "relax",
          "relax"
        ],
        [
          "control",
          "control"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, colloquial) To increase spending or allow increased spending; to relax control of spending."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-loosen the purse strings.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a0/En-au-loosen_the_purse_strings.ogg/En-au-loosen_the_purse_strings.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/En-au-loosen_the_purse_strings.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "loosen the pursestrings"
    },
    {
      "word": "loosen the purse-strings"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to increase or allow to increase spending",
      "word": "hellittää kukkaron nyörejä"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "to increase or allow to increase spending",
      "word": "allentare i cordoni della borsa"
    }
  ],
  "word": "loosen the purse strings"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). 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.