See move the yardsticks in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "The phrase originates from American football, where every ten yards of forward progress by the offense moves the yardsticks ahead to measure the next ten yards of progress.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "moves the yardsticks",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "moving the yardsticks",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "moved the yardsticks",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "moved the yardsticks",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "move the yardsticks (third-person singular simple present moves the yardsticks, present participle moving the yardsticks, simple past and past participle moved the yardsticks)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Football (American)",
"orig": "en:Football (American)",
"parents": [
"Football",
"Ball games",
"Sports",
"Human activity",
"Human behaviour",
"Human",
"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "67 33",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
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"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "78 22",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "69 31",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To move the chains."
],
"id": "en-move_the_yardsticks-en-verb-dZe98w7~",
"links": [
[
"American football",
"American football"
],
[
"move the chains",
"move the chains"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(American football) To move the chains."
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "83 17",
"word": "move the goalposts"
}
],
"topics": [
"American-football",
"ball-games",
"football",
"games",
"hobbies",
"lifestyle",
"sports"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"glosses": [
"To make progress, as used in political and corporate venues to express proactive actions."
],
"id": "en-move_the_yardsticks-en-verb-q-wqB5uI",
"links": [
[
"make",
"make"
],
[
"progress",
"progress"
],
[
"political",
"political"
],
[
"corporate",
"corporate"
],
[
"venues",
"venues"
],
[
"proactive",
"proactive"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To make progress, as used in political and corporate venues to express proactive actions."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
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{
"audio": "En-au-move the yardsticks.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/45/En-au-move_the_yardsticks.ogg/En-au-move_the_yardsticks.ogg.mp3",
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"word": "move the yardsticks"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "The phrase originates from American football, where every ten yards of forward progress by the offense moves the yardsticks ahead to measure the next ten yards of progress.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "moves the yardsticks",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "moving the yardsticks",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "moved the yardsticks",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "moved the yardsticks",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "move the yardsticks (third-person singular simple present moves the yardsticks, present participle moving the yardsticks, simple past and past participle moved the yardsticks)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "move the goalposts"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"en:Football (American)"
],
"glosses": [
"To move the chains."
],
"links": [
[
"American football",
"American football"
],
[
"move the chains",
"move the chains"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(American football) To move the chains."
],
"topics": [
"American-football",
"ball-games",
"football",
"games",
"hobbies",
"lifestyle",
"sports"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms"
],
"glosses": [
"To make progress, as used in political and corporate venues to express proactive actions."
],
"links": [
[
"make",
"make"
],
[
"progress",
"progress"
],
[
"political",
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[
"corporate",
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],
[
"venues",
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],
[
"proactive",
"proactive"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To make progress, as used in political and corporate venues to express proactive actions."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-move the yardsticks.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/45/En-au-move_the_yardsticks.ogg/En-au-move_the_yardsticks.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/En-au-move_the_yardsticks.ogg"
}
],
"word": "move the yardsticks"
}
Download raw JSONL data for move the yardsticks meaning in English (2.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-29 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-20 using wiktextract (4eaa824 and ea19a0a). 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.