See perfect is the enemy of good in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for perfect is the enemy of good meaning in English (2.5kB)
{
"derived": [
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "make the perfect the enemy of the good"
},
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "let the perfect be the enemy of the good"
}
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
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"1": "fr",
"2": "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien"
},
"expansion": "le mieux est l’ennemi du bien",
"name": "m"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "it",
"3": "-"
},
"expansion": "Italian",
"name": "der"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "it",
"2": "il meglio è nemico del bene"
},
"expansion": "il meglio è nemico del bene",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Variant of the older the best is the enemy of the good, popularized by Voltaire in French as le mieux est l’ennemi du bien, itself a translation of the Italian proverb il meglio è nemico del bene.",
"head_templates": [
{
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"head": ""
},
"expansion": "perfect is the enemy of good",
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{
"args": {},
"expansion": "perfect is the enemy of good",
"name": "en-proverb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "proverb",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "half a loaf is better than none"
},
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "leave well enough alone"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "48 52",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English proverbs",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Insistence on perfection often precludes the opportunity for something worthwhile."
],
"id": "en-perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good-en-proverb-NmPiFnFc",
"links": [
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"Insistence",
"insistence"
],
[
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]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "48 52",
"kind": "other",
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}
],
"glosses": [
"Insistence on perfection precludes gradual improvement through compromises."
],
"id": "en-perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good-en-proverb-F8C9Md2i",
"links": [
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}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "better is the enemy of good"
},
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "the best is the enemy of the good"
},
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "the better is the enemy of the good"
},
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "the perfect is the enemy of the good"
},
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "perfection is the enemy of good"
},
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"word": "perfect is the enemy of good enough"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Dictionnaire philosophique",
"Voltaire"
],
"word": "perfect is the enemy of good"
}
{
"categories": [
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English proverbs",
"English terms derived from Italian"
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "make the perfect the enemy of the good"
},
{
"word": "let the perfect be the enemy of the good"
}
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
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},
"expansion": "le mieux est l’ennemi du bien",
"name": "m"
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{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "it",
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"expansion": "Italian",
"name": "der"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "it",
"2": "il meglio è nemico del bene"
},
"expansion": "il meglio è nemico del bene",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Variant of the older the best is the enemy of the good, popularized by Voltaire in French as le mieux est l’ennemi du bien, itself a translation of the Italian proverb il meglio è nemico del bene.",
"head_templates": [
{
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"expansion": "perfect is the enemy of good",
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{
"args": {},
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"name": "en-proverb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "proverb",
"related": [
{
"word": "half a loaf is better than none"
},
{
"word": "leave well enough alone"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"Insistence on perfection often precludes the opportunity for something worthwhile."
],
"links": [
[
"Insistence",
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],
[
"perfection",
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],
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[
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[
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]
},
{
"glosses": [
"Insistence on perfection precludes gradual improvement through compromises."
],
"links": [
[
"Insistence",
"insistence"
],
[
"perfection",
"perfection"
],
[
"preclude",
"preclude"
],
[
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],
[
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}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "better is the enemy of good"
},
{
"word": "the best is the enemy of the good"
},
{
"word": "the better is the enemy of the good"
},
{
"word": "the perfect is the enemy of the good"
},
{
"word": "perfection is the enemy of good"
},
{
"word": "perfect is the enemy of good enough"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Dictionnaire philosophique",
"Voltaire"
],
"word": "perfect is the enemy of good"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-17 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-01 using wiktextract (0b52755 and 5cb0836). 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.