"over one's head" meaning in English

See over one's head in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: En-au-over one's head.ogg [Australia] Forms: over one’s head [canonical]
Head templates: {{head|en|adjective|head=over one’s head}} over one’s head
  1. (idiomatic) More complex or confusing than one can understand; beyond one’s comprehension. Tags: idiomatic Translations (more complex or confusing than one can understand): выше чьего-либо понимания (vyše čʹjevo-libo ponimanija) (english: above one's understanding) (Russian)
    Sense id: en-over_one's_head-en-adj-Mxb-JYWt Disambiguation of 'more complex or confusing than one can understand': 82 10 2 1 5
  2. (idiomatic) More than one can handle; too much (especially in over one's head). Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: out of one's depth Translations (more than one can handle; too much): выше чьих-либо сил (english: above one's strength/abilities) (Russian), не по зубам (english: one's teeth are no match for this) (Russian), ta sig vatten över huvudet (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-over_one's_head-en-adj-2obz0Pdh Disambiguation of 'more than one can handle; too much': 9 82 4 1 4
  3. (idiomatic, sports) Performing at a level greatly superior to one's usual level of performance. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Sports
    Sense id: en-over_one's_head-en-adj-OtrieXr~ Topics: hobbies, lifestyle, sports
  4. (idiomatic, business) Directed to someone with authority over the person, so as to avoid requiring the approval of the person himself or herself. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Business
    Sense id: en-over_one's_head-en-adj-oTQQpM15 Topics: business
  5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see over, head.
    Sense id: en-over_one's_head-en-adj-ZGQ6One4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 5 5 15 8 67

Download JSON data for over one's head meaning in English (4.5kB)

{
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      "tags": [
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "This is way over my head. Can you explain it more simply?",
          "type": "example"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "More complex or confusing than one can understand; beyond one’s comprehension."
      ],
      "id": "en-over_one's_head-en-adj-Mxb-JYWt",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) More complex or confusing than one can understand; beyond one’s comprehension."
      ],
      "tags": [
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      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "82 10 2 1 5",
          "code": "ru",
          "english": "above one's understanding",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "vyše čʹjevo-libo ponimanija",
          "sense": "more complex or confusing than one can understand",
          "word": "выше чьего-либо понимания"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I’m in over my head on this project. Can you help?",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, “I Can’t Feel My Face”, in Da Drought 3, performed by Lil Wayne",
          "text": "Fuck Waist Deep, I'm in over my head / But it's cool, I'ma make it, I'm Good like Meagan",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "More than one can handle; too much (especially in over one's head)."
      ],
      "id": "en-over_one's_head-en-adj-2obz0Pdh",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) More than one can handle; too much (especially in over one's head)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "6 49 18 11 16",
          "word": "out of one's depth"
        }
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        {
          "_dis1": "9 82 4 1 4",
          "code": "ru",
          "english": "above one's strength/abilities",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "sense": "more than one can handle; too much",
          "word": "выше чьих-либо сил"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "9 82 4 1 4",
          "code": "ru",
          "english": "one's teeth are no match for this",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "sense": "more than one can handle; too much",
          "word": "не по зубам"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "9 82 4 1 4",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "more than one can handle; too much",
          "word": "ta sig vatten över huvudet"
        }
      ]
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        {
          "text": "He just shot a spectacularly over his head round of golf and beat all of us.",
          "type": "example"
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        "Performing at a level greatly superior to one's usual level of performance."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, sports) Performing at a level greatly superior to one's usual level of performance."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
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        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2005, Robert H. Vaughn, The Professional Trainer: A Comprehensive Guide, page 121",
          "text": "[Y]ou suspect that he's building a case to go over your head and talk to your boss about performance in your section.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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        "Directed to someone with authority over the person, so as to avoid requiring the approval of the person himself or herself."
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        "(idiomatic, business) Directed to someone with authority over the person, so as to avoid requiring the approval of the person himself or herself."
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        "idiomatic"
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        "business"
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      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see over, head."
      ],
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      "tags": [
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  "word": "over one's head"
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{
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      "form": "over one’s head",
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        "(idiomatic) More complex or confusing than one can understand; beyond one’s comprehension."
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          "ref": "2009, “I Can’t Feel My Face”, in Da Drought 3, performed by Lil Wayne",
          "text": "Fuck Waist Deep, I'm in over my head / But it's cool, I'ma make it, I'm Good like Meagan",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "More than one can handle; too much (especially in over one's head)."
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        "(idiomatic) More than one can handle; too much (especially in over one's head)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
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          "text": "He just shot a spectacularly over his head round of golf and beat all of us.",
          "type": "example"
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        "Performing at a level greatly superior to one's usual level of performance."
      ],
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, sports) Performing at a level greatly superior to one's usual level of performance."
      ],
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        "idiomatic"
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        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
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          "ref": "2005, Robert H. Vaughn, The Professional Trainer: A Comprehensive Guide, page 121",
          "text": "[Y]ou suspect that he's building a case to go over your head and talk to your boss about performance in your section.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Directed to someone with authority over the person, so as to avoid requiring the approval of the person himself or herself."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, business) Directed to someone with authority over the person, so as to avoid requiring the approval of the person himself or herself."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "business"
      ]
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    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see over, head."
      ],
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      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d4/En-au-over_one%27s_head.ogg/En-au-over_one%27s_head.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/En-au-over_one%27s_head.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "out of one's depth"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "english": "above one's understanding",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "vyše čʹjevo-libo ponimanija",
      "sense": "more complex or confusing than one can understand",
      "word": "выше чьего-либо понимания"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "english": "above one's strength/abilities",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "sense": "more than one can handle; too much",
      "word": "выше чьих-либо сил"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "english": "one's teeth are no match for this",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "sense": "more than one can handle; too much",
      "word": "не по зубам"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "more than one can handle; too much",
      "word": "ta sig vatten över huvudet"
    }
  ],
  "word": "over one's head"
}

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.