See lose the plot in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "loses the plot",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
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]
},
{
"form": "losing the plot",
"tags": [
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{
"form": "lost the plot",
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"1": "lose<,,lost> the plot"
},
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"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
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{
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{
"_dis": "38 42 20",
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1995, Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 25:",
"text": "I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits and the exit sign.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2004, Ron Phillips, The Travels of Plymouth: A Fable for Our Time, page 202:",
"text": "Right then I lost the plot. I did, man, I went over the edge.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2007, Caryl Wyatt, Anita Le Roux, Look Me in the Eye: Caryl's Story, page 28:",
"text": "Finally, I lost the plot. I got into my car and drove to the police station.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2010, Jackie Hall, The Happy Mum Handbook, page 102:",
"text": "Apologise for losing the plot and explain what made you react the way you did.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To cease to behave in a consistent or rational manner."
],
"id": "en-lose_the_plot-en-verb-4Cst7ZA-",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(UK, idiomatic, colloquial) To cease to behave in a consistent or rational manner."
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"colloquial",
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "97 2 1",
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to cease to behave in a consistent or rational manner",
"word": "perder a linha"
}
]
},
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"_dis": "26 62 11",
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"source": "w+disamb"
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{
"_dis": "24 64 12",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "15 72 13",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1995, John Frank Williams, The Quarantined Culture: Australian Reactions to Modernism, 1913–1939, page 219:",
"text": "But while there remains a considerable degree of consensus that the consequence of apparently losing the plot sometime between 1914 and 1918 was the cultural and economic malaise of the 1920s and 1930s, there are still some who look back on the interwar years less with criticism than with nostalgia.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2007, Colin James Isbister, The Body of Christ, page 99:",
"text": "Because of this it seems to me that we have somehow lost the plot and we're in desperate need of balance. The idea of Protestant ministers touching the body of Christ (the bread) with great love and tenderness like the priest described is almost incomprehensible.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"text": "2011, House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs, 2nd Report of Session 2010-11: Auditors: Market Concentration and Their Role, Volume II: Evidence, page 19,\n[Professor Fearnley:] If I can perhaps be a little unkind about my profession — which is fair enough I suppose — I think the accountancy profession, along with other professions, loses the plot from time to time and has to be pulled back from what it was doing before."
}
],
"glosses": [
"To lose sight of an important objective or principle; to act contrarily to one's own interests through concentrating on relatively unimportant matters."
],
"id": "en-lose_the_plot-en-verb-cE1h--LB",
"links": [
[
"lose",
"lose"
],
[
"sight",
"sight"
],
[
"important",
"important"
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[
"objective",
"objective"
],
[
"principle",
"principle"
],
[
"contrarily",
"contrarily"
],
[
"interest",
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[
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[
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[
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[
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"matter"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(UK, idiomatic, colloquial) To lose sight of an important objective or principle; to act contrarily to one's own interests through concentrating on relatively unimportant matters."
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"colloquial",
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "3 78 19",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to lose sight of the objective",
"word": "menettää otteensa"
},
{
"_dis1": "3 78 19",
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "to lose sight of the objective",
"word": "kei Mahurangi"
},
{
"_dis1": "3 78 19",
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to lose sight of the objective",
"word": "perder o fio da meada"
},
{
"_dis1": "3 78 19",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "to lose sight of the objective",
"word": "perder el norte"
}
]
},
{
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{
"ref": "2005 Winter, Alan Palmer, “Intermental Thought in the Novel: The Middlemarch Mind.”, in Style, volume 39, number 4, page 427:",
"text": "Readers enter the storyworlds of novels and then follow the logic of the events that occur in them primarily by attempting to reconstruct the fictional minds of the characters in that storyworld. Otherwise, readers lose the plot.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lose, plot."
],
"id": "en-lose_the_plot-en-verb--25BhSuN",
"links": [
[
"lose",
"lose#English"
],
[
"plot",
"plot#English"
]
]
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"audio": "En-au-lose the plot.ogg",
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"word": "lose the plot"
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"English lemmas",
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"English predicates",
"English verbs",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with Maori translations",
"Terms with Portuguese translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "loses the plot",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "losing the plot",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "lost the plot",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "lost the plot",
"tags": [
"past"
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"head_templates": [
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"args": {
"1": "lose<,,lost> the plot"
},
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"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"British English",
"English colloquialisms",
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1995, Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 25:",
"text": "I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits and the exit sign.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2004, Ron Phillips, The Travels of Plymouth: A Fable for Our Time, page 202:",
"text": "Right then I lost the plot. I did, man, I went over the edge.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2007, Caryl Wyatt, Anita Le Roux, Look Me in the Eye: Caryl's Story, page 28:",
"text": "Finally, I lost the plot. I got into my car and drove to the police station.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2010, Jackie Hall, The Happy Mum Handbook, page 102:",
"text": "Apologise for losing the plot and explain what made you react the way you did.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To cease to behave in a consistent or rational manner."
],
"links": [
[
"cease",
"cease"
],
[
"behave",
"behave"
],
[
"consistent",
"consistent"
],
[
"rational",
"rational"
],
[
"manner",
"manner"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(UK, idiomatic, colloquial) To cease to behave in a consistent or rational manner."
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"colloquial",
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"British English",
"English colloquialisms",
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1995, John Frank Williams, The Quarantined Culture: Australian Reactions to Modernism, 1913–1939, page 219:",
"text": "But while there remains a considerable degree of consensus that the consequence of apparently losing the plot sometime between 1914 and 1918 was the cultural and economic malaise of the 1920s and 1930s, there are still some who look back on the interwar years less with criticism than with nostalgia.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2007, Colin James Isbister, The Body of Christ, page 99:",
"text": "Because of this it seems to me that we have somehow lost the plot and we're in desperate need of balance. The idea of Protestant ministers touching the body of Christ (the bread) with great love and tenderness like the priest described is almost incomprehensible.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"text": "2011, House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs, 2nd Report of Session 2010-11: Auditors: Market Concentration and Their Role, Volume II: Evidence, page 19,\n[Professor Fearnley:] If I can perhaps be a little unkind about my profession — which is fair enough I suppose — I think the accountancy profession, along with other professions, loses the plot from time to time and has to be pulled back from what it was doing before."
}
],
"glosses": [
"To lose sight of an important objective or principle; to act contrarily to one's own interests through concentrating on relatively unimportant matters."
],
"links": [
[
"lose",
"lose"
],
[
"sight",
"sight"
],
[
"important",
"important"
],
[
"objective",
"objective"
],
[
"principle",
"principle"
],
[
"contrarily",
"contrarily"
],
[
"interest",
"interest"
],
[
"concentrating",
"concentrate"
],
[
"relatively",
"relatively"
],
[
"unimportant",
"unimportant"
],
[
"matter",
"matter"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(UK, idiomatic, colloquial) To lose sight of an important objective or principle; to act contrarily to one's own interests through concentrating on relatively unimportant matters."
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"colloquial",
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2005 Winter, Alan Palmer, “Intermental Thought in the Novel: The Middlemarch Mind.”, in Style, volume 39, number 4, page 427:",
"text": "Readers enter the storyworlds of novels and then follow the logic of the events that occur in them primarily by attempting to reconstruct the fictional minds of the characters in that storyworld. Otherwise, readers lose the plot.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lose, plot."
],
"links": [
[
"lose",
"lose#English"
],
[
"plot",
"plot#English"
]
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-lose the plot.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/25/En-au-lose_the_plot.ogg/En-au-lose_the_plot.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/En-au-lose_the_plot.ogg"
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],
"translations": [
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to cease to behave in a consistent or rational manner",
"word": "perder a linha"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to lose sight of the objective",
"word": "menettää otteensa"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "to lose sight of the objective",
"word": "kei Mahurangi"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to lose sight of the objective",
"word": "perder o fio da meada"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "to lose sight of the objective",
"word": "perder el norte"
}
],
"word": "lose the plot"
}
Download raw JSONL data for lose the plot meaning in English (5.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (94ba7e1 and 5dea2a6). 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.