"measure the drapes" meaning in English

See measure the drapes in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-measure the drapes.ogg [Australia] Forms: measures the drapes [present, singular, third-person], measuring the drapes [participle, present], measured the drapes [participle, past], measured the drapes [past]
Etymology: After the election of a new President of the United States, the decor of the White House is changed to reflect the taste of the new administration. Historically the task has been left to the First Lady, the wife of the President. During the 1940 campaign for President, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio sought the Republican Party nomination. His wife, Martha Taft, gave an interview to the Evening Independent of St. Petersburg, Florida, in which she expressed certainty of his victory: * 1940 February 19, Evening Independent, page 11: Martha Taft is sure that "Bob is going to get it." She is ready to answer questions in regular stump style, though she refuses to say whether she will change the drawing-room drapes in the White House. Since Taft won neither the general election nor his party's nomination, the idea of "measuring the drapes" for installation in the White House became a metaphor for premature preparation for victory, or over-confidence. Etymology templates: {{quote-journal|en|author=|date=1940-02-19|journal=Evening Independent|page=11|text=Martha Taft is sure that "Bob is going to get it." She is ready to answer questions in regular stump style, though she refuses to say whether she will change the drawing-room drapes in the White House.|title=|volume=}} 1940 February 19, Evening Independent, page 11: Martha Taft is sure that "Bob is going to get it." She is ready to answer questions in regular stump style, though she refuses to say whether she will change the drawing-room drapes in the White House. Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=measure the drapes}} measure the drapes (third-person singular simple present measures the drapes, present participle measuring the drapes, simple past and past participle measured the drapes)
  1. (idiomatic) To make premature or unwarranted preparations for victory, especially election to public office. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms (premature celebration of victory): measure the curtains
    Sense id: en-measure_the_drapes-en-verb-k6oWkKhi Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for measure the drapes meaning in English (3.6kB)

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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "author": "",
        "date": "1940-02-19",
        "journal": "Evening Independent",
        "page": "11",
        "text": "Martha Taft is sure that \"Bob is going to get it.\" She is ready to answer questions in regular stump style, though she refuses to say whether she will change the drawing-room drapes in the White House.",
        "title": "",
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      "expansion": "1940 February 19, Evening Independent, page 11:\nMartha Taft is sure that \"Bob is going to get it.\" She is ready to answer questions in regular stump style, though she refuses to say whether she will change the drawing-room drapes in the White House.",
      "name": "quote-journal"
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  "etymology_text": "After the election of a new President of the United States, the decor of the White House is changed to reflect the taste of the new administration. Historically the task has been left to the First Lady, the wife of the President. During the 1940 campaign for President, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio sought the Republican Party nomination. His wife, Martha Taft, gave an interview to the Evening Independent of St. Petersburg, Florida, in which she expressed certainty of his victory:\n*\n1940 February 19, Evening Independent, page 11:\nMartha Taft is sure that \"Bob is going to get it.\" She is ready to answer questions in regular stump style, though she refuses to say whether she will change the drawing-room drapes in the White House.\nSince Taft won neither the general election nor his party's nomination, the idea of \"measuring the drapes\" for installation in the White House became a metaphor for premature preparation for victory, or over-confidence.",
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    {
      "form": "measuring the drapes",
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    {
      "form": "measured the drapes",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988 October 15, New York Times",
          "text": "While Republicans like Gov. Michael Castle of Delaware exulted that \"I think Bush can start measuring the curtains for the White House,\" the mood among Democrats was somber.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To make premature or unwarranted preparations for victory, especially election to public office."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To make premature or unwarranted preparations for victory, especially election to public office."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
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          "sense": "premature celebration of victory",
          "word": "measure the curtains"
        }
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      "tags": [
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "measures the drapes",
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    },
    {
      "form": "measuring the drapes",
      "tags": [
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    {
      "form": "measured the drapes",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988 October 15, New York Times",
          "text": "While Republicans like Gov. Michael Castle of Delaware exulted that \"I think Bush can start measuring the curtains for the White House,\" the mood among Democrats was somber.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "(idiomatic) To make premature or unwarranted preparations for victory, especially election to public office."
      ],
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      "tags": [
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "premature celebration of victory",
      "word": "measure the curtains"
    }
  ],
  "word": "measure the drapes"
}

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