See pick one's battles in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for pick one's battles meaning in English (3.0kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "picks one's battles",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "picking one's battles",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "picked one's battles",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "picked one's battles",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "pick one's battles (third-person singular simple present picks one's battles, present participle picking one's battles, simple past and past participle picked one's battles)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "47 53",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To involve oneself in disputes only if one is likely to win."
],
"id": "en-pick_one's_battles-en-verb-5KxyaWHX",
"links": [
[
"involve",
"involve"
],
[
"dispute",
"dispute"
],
[
"win",
"win"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To involve oneself in disputes only if one is likely to win."
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "64 36",
"word": "never fight a land war in Asia"
},
{
"_dis1": "64 36",
"word": "hill to die on"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "64 36",
"word": "choose one's battles"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "76 24",
"code": "zh",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win",
"word": "選邊站"
},
{
"_dis1": "76 24",
"code": "zh",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win",
"word": "选边站"
},
{
"_dis1": "76 24",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win",
"word": "valita taistelunsa"
},
{
"_dis1": "76 24",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "uczestniczyć tylko w pewnych bitwach"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "47 53",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To take a stand for a cause only if it is truly important enough to be worth the costs."
],
"id": "en-pick_one's_battles-en-verb-bFXpan4c",
"links": [
[
"take a stand",
"take a stand"
],
[
"cause",
"cause"
],
[
"important",
"important"
],
[
"worth",
"worth"
],
[
"cost",
"cost"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To take a stand for a cause only if it is truly important enough to be worth the costs."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "9 91",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to only take a stand for a cause that is truly important to one",
"word": "valita taistelunsa"
},
{
"_dis1": "9 91",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to only take a stand for a cause that is truly important to one",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "walczyć tylko w ważnych dla siebie sprawach"
}
]
}
],
"word": "pick one's battles"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English verbs"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "picks one's battles",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "picking one's battles",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "picked one's battles",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "picked one's battles",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "pick one's battles (third-person singular simple present picks one's battles, present participle picking one's battles, simple past and past participle picked one's battles)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "never fight a land war in Asia"
},
{
"word": "hill to die on"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms"
],
"glosses": [
"To involve oneself in disputes only if one is likely to win."
],
"links": [
[
"involve",
"involve"
],
[
"dispute",
"dispute"
],
[
"win",
"win"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To involve oneself in disputes only if one is likely to win."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms"
],
"glosses": [
"To take a stand for a cause only if it is truly important enough to be worth the costs."
],
"links": [
[
"take a stand",
"take a stand"
],
[
"cause",
"cause"
],
[
"important",
"important"
],
[
"worth",
"worth"
],
[
"cost",
"cost"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To take a stand for a cause only if it is truly important enough to be worth the costs."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "choose one's battles"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "zh",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win",
"word": "選邊站"
},
{
"code": "zh",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win",
"word": "选边站"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win",
"word": "valita taistelunsa"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "uczestniczyć tylko w pewnych bitwach"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to only take a stand for a cause that is truly important to one",
"word": "valita taistelunsa"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to only take a stand for a cause that is truly important to one",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "walczyć tylko w ważnych dla siebie sprawach"
}
],
"word": "pick one's battles"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 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.