"march to the beat of a different drum" meaning in English

See march to the beat of a different drum in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-march to the beat of a different drum.ogg [Australia] Forms: marches to the beat of a different drum [present, singular, third-person], marching to the beat of a different drum [participle, present], marched to the beat of a different drum [participle, past], marched to the beat of a different drum [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} march to the beat of a different drum (third-person singular simple present marches to the beat of a different drum, present participle marching to the beat of a different drum, simple past and past participle marched to the beat of a different drum)
  1. (idiomatic) To do things in one's own way regardless of societal norms and conventional expectations. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: march to a different drum, march to a different drummer, march to one's own drum, march to one's own drummer, march to the beat of a different drummer, march to the beat of one's own drum, march to the beat of one's own drummer, march to a different beat, march to a different tune [UK], march to the beat of a different tune Translations (to do things unconventionally): kulkea omia polkujaan (Finnish), aus der Reihe tanzen (German), aus der Art schlagen (German), fazer as coisas do seu jeito (Portuguese), идти́ свои́м путём (idtí svoím putjóm) (Russian), идти́ не в но́гу с други́ми (idtí ne v nógu s drugími) (Russian), marchar al ritmo de un diferente tambor (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-march_to_the_beat_of_a_different_drum-en-verb-FNKqAD3m Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for march to the beat of a different drum meaning in English (4.5kB)

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      "form": "marches to the beat of a different drum",
      "tags": [
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      "form": "marching to the beat of a different drum",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1994 January 10, Penn Jillette, “Las Vegas: Tonight! Miracles, Live!”, in Time",
          "text": "Siegfried and Roy, two nuts from Germany, are out of their wealthy little minds. They live in a mansion whose ceiling is painted like the Sistine Chapel, with either Siegfried or Roy (who can remember?) in place of Adam. Roy has a \"meditation chamber\" (the rest of us have dressing rooms) furnished with a mystic rug and cages for his tigers. They wow the crowd with heavy machinery and endangered-species eugenics. I love S&R. They march to the beat of a different drum machine.",
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        {
          "ref": "2004, Danny Hakim, “E.P.A. Energy-Saving Spots Give Cars Short Shrift”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-07-21",
          "text": "The ad ends with a shot of Mark pushing the car down a hill and Suzanne saying, \"He still marches to the beat of a different drum.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2004, Larry Portis, French Frenzies: A Social History of Pop Music in France, page 114",
          "text": "A defense of non-conformism, deceptively simple in tone and construction, and only slightly political, it is the story of a loner . . . who stays in bed on Bastille Day and ignores the military parade . . . \"the good people don't like it when you take a path different from theirs,\" when you march to the beat of a different drum.",
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        "To do things in one's own way regardless of societal norms and conventional expectations."
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        "(idiomatic) To do things in one's own way regardless of societal norms and conventional expectations."
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        {
          "word": "march to a different drum"
        },
        {
          "word": "march to a different drummer"
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          "word": "march to one's own drum"
        },
        {
          "word": "march to one's own drummer"
        },
        {
          "word": "march to the beat of a different drummer"
        },
        {
          "word": "march to the beat of one's own drum"
        },
        {
          "word": "march to the beat of one's own drummer"
        },
        {
          "word": "march to a different beat"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
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          "word": "march to a different tune"
        },
        {
          "word": "march to the beat of a different tune"
        }
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      "tags": [
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
          "word": "kulkea omia polkujaan"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
          "word": "aus der Reihe tanzen"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
          "word": "aus der Art schlagen"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
          "word": "fazer as coisas do seu jeito"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "idtí svoím putjóm",
          "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
          "word": "идти́ свои́м путём"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "idtí ne v nógu s drugími",
          "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
          "word": "идти́ не в но́гу с други́ми"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
          "word": "marchar al ritmo de un diferente tambor"
        }
      ]
    }
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  "word": "march to the beat of a different drum"
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          "ref": "1994 January 10, Penn Jillette, “Las Vegas: Tonight! Miracles, Live!”, in Time",
          "text": "Siegfried and Roy, two nuts from Germany, are out of their wealthy little minds. They live in a mansion whose ceiling is painted like the Sistine Chapel, with either Siegfried or Roy (who can remember?) in place of Adam. Roy has a \"meditation chamber\" (the rest of us have dressing rooms) furnished with a mystic rug and cages for his tigers. They wow the crowd with heavy machinery and endangered-species eugenics. I love S&R. They march to the beat of a different drum machine.",
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          "type": "quotation"
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          "text": "A defense of non-conformism, deceptively simple in tone and construction, and only slightly political, it is the story of a loner . . . who stays in bed on Bastille Day and ignores the military parade . . . \"the good people don't like it when you take a path different from theirs,\" when you march to the beat of a different drum.",
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        "(idiomatic) To do things in one's own way regardless of societal norms and conventional expectations."
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "march to a different drum"
    },
    {
      "word": "march to a different drummer"
    },
    {
      "word": "march to one's own drum"
    },
    {
      "word": "march to one's own drummer"
    },
    {
      "word": "march to the beat of a different drummer"
    },
    {
      "word": "march to the beat of one's own drum"
    },
    {
      "word": "march to the beat of one's own drummer"
    },
    {
      "word": "march to a different beat"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ],
      "word": "march to a different tune"
    },
    {
      "word": "march to the beat of a different tune"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
      "word": "kulkea omia polkujaan"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
      "word": "aus der Reihe tanzen"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
      "word": "aus der Art schlagen"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
      "word": "fazer as coisas do seu jeito"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "idtí svoím putjóm",
      "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
      "word": "идти́ свои́м путём"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "idtí ne v nógu s drugími",
      "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
      "word": "идти́ не в но́гу с други́ми"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "to do things unconventionally",
      "word": "marchar al ritmo de un diferente tambor"
    }
  ],
  "word": "march to the beat of a different drum"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.