See make short work of in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for make short work of meaning in English (4.2kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "makes short work of",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "making short work of",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "made short work of",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "made short work of",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "make<,,made> short work of"
},
"expansion": "make short work of (third-person singular simple present makes short work of, present participle making short work of, simple past and past participle made short work of)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "A good electric screwdriver will make short work of the disassembly process.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1962 September, G. Freeman Allen, “The New Look in Scotland's Northern Division—1”, in Modern Railways, page 164",
"text": "[...] a cab ride in one of the Birmingham Type 2 diesels over the Mallaig extension demonstrated what short work—and what a transformation of the engineman's lot—these machines make of the gradients by comparison with their steam predecessors.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To do (a task) quicker or easier."
],
"id": "en-make_short_work_of-en-verb-Z1f7fEmw",
"links": [
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"quicker",
"quicker"
],
[
"easier",
"easier"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(transitive, idiomatic) To do (a task) quicker or easier."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"transitive"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "93 7",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "make (a task) quicker or easier",
"word": "helpottaa"
},
{
"_dis1": "93 7",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "make (a task) quicker or easier",
"word": "nopeuttaa"
},
{
"_dis1": "93 7",
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "make (a task) quicker or easier",
"word": "gera sér lítið fyrir"
},
{
"_dis1": "93 7",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "make (a task) quicker or easier",
"word": "dar buena cuenta de"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "43 57",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1897, Maynard Barbour, chapter 26, in The Award of Justice",
"text": "\"There was desperate characters here, but the vigilantes made short work of 'em.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2021 March 19, Bosnian Ape Society, 5:23 from the start, in Is Your Car Safe From Supermaneuverable Air-Defense Fighter Aircraft?, archived from the original on 2022-08-07",
"text": "With what you have learned from your drivers' education course so far, you should be able to make short work of an enemy aircraft.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 February 8, Greg Morse, “Crossing the border... by Sleeper”, in RAIL, number 976, page 42",
"text": "I arrange some of my things and sit back, making short work of the chocolate bars supplied to passengers.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty."
],
"id": "en-make_short_work_of-en-verb-72nSZGWZ",
"links": [
[
"deal with",
"deal with"
],
[
"overcome",
"overcome"
],
[
"difficulty",
"difficulty"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(transitive, idiomatic) To deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty."
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"word": "short shrift"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"word": "make quick work of"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"word": "make mincemeat of"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"transitive"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "1 99",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty",
"word": "hoitaa alta pois"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty",
"word": "ne faire qu’une bouchée de"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-make short work of.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cf/En-au-make_short_work_of.ogg/En-au-make_short_work_of.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/En-au-make_short_work_of.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "make short work of"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with audio links",
"English verbs"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "makes short work of",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "making short work of",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "made short work of",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "made short work of",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "make<,,made> short work of"
},
"expansion": "make short work of (third-person singular simple present makes short work of, present participle making short work of, simple past and past participle made short work of)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "short shrift"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"English transitive verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "A good electric screwdriver will make short work of the disassembly process.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1962 September, G. Freeman Allen, “The New Look in Scotland's Northern Division—1”, in Modern Railways, page 164",
"text": "[...] a cab ride in one of the Birmingham Type 2 diesels over the Mallaig extension demonstrated what short work—and what a transformation of the engineman's lot—these machines make of the gradients by comparison with their steam predecessors.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To do (a task) quicker or easier."
],
"links": [
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"quicker",
"quicker"
],
[
"easier",
"easier"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(transitive, idiomatic) To do (a task) quicker or easier."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"transitive"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations",
"English transitive verbs",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1897, Maynard Barbour, chapter 26, in The Award of Justice",
"text": "\"There was desperate characters here, but the vigilantes made short work of 'em.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2021 March 19, Bosnian Ape Society, 5:23 from the start, in Is Your Car Safe From Supermaneuverable Air-Defense Fighter Aircraft?, archived from the original on 2022-08-07",
"text": "With what you have learned from your drivers' education course so far, you should be able to make short work of an enemy aircraft.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 February 8, Greg Morse, “Crossing the border... by Sleeper”, in RAIL, number 976, page 42",
"text": "I arrange some of my things and sit back, making short work of the chocolate bars supplied to passengers.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty."
],
"links": [
[
"deal with",
"deal with"
],
[
"overcome",
"overcome"
],
[
"difficulty",
"difficulty"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(transitive, idiomatic) To deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"transitive"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-make short work of.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cf/En-au-make_short_work_of.ogg/En-au-make_short_work_of.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/En-au-make_short_work_of.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "make quick work of"
},
{
"word": "make mincemeat of"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "make (a task) quicker or easier",
"word": "helpottaa"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "make (a task) quicker or easier",
"word": "nopeuttaa"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "make (a task) quicker or easier",
"word": "gera sér lítið fyrir"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "make (a task) quicker or easier",
"word": "dar buena cuenta de"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty",
"word": "hoitaa alta pois"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty",
"word": "ne faire qu’une bouchée de"
}
],
"word": "make short work of"
}
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.