"pin the tail on the donkey" meaning in English

See pin the tail on the donkey in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} pin the tail on the donkey (uncountable)
  1. (games) A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded. Tags: uncountable Categories (topical): Games Translations (A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded.): ezeltje-prik (Dutch)
    Sense id: en-pin_the_tail_on_the_donkey-en-noun-B83Cci1g Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 75 25 Topics: games Disambiguation of "A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded.": 90 10
  2. (by extension) Any attempt to aim something somewhere while handicapped in doing so. Tags: broadly, uncountable
    Sense id: en-pin_the_tail_on_the_donkey-en-noun-0QsLvlmr

Download JSON data for pin the tail on the donkey meaning in English (1.9kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "pin the tail on the donkey (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Games",
          "orig": "en:Games",
          "parents": [
            "Recreation",
            "Human activity",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "75 25",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded."
      ],
      "id": "en-pin_the_tail_on_the_donkey-en-noun-B83Cci1g",
      "links": [
        [
          "games",
          "game#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "child",
          "child"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(games) A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "games"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "90 10",
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded.",
          "word": "ezeltje-prik"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001, David F. D'Alessandro, Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand, McGraw-Hill Professional, page 35",
          "text": "Without it, you may as well be playing pin the tail on the donkey with your marketing efforts.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any attempt to aim something somewhere while handicapped in doing so."
      ],
      "id": "en-pin_the_tail_on_the_donkey-en-noun-0QsLvlmr",
      "links": [
        [
          "attempt",
          "attempt"
        ],
        [
          "aim",
          "aim"
        ],
        [
          "handicap",
          "handicap"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension) Any attempt to aim something somewhere while handicapped in doing so."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "pin the tail on the donkey"
  ],
  "word": "pin the tail on the donkey"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncountable nouns"
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  "head_templates": [
    {
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      "expansion": "pin the tail on the donkey (uncountable)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "en:Games"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded."
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        "(games) A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
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        "games"
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      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001, David F. D'Alessandro, Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand, McGraw-Hill Professional, page 35",
          "text": "Without it, you may as well be playing pin the tail on the donkey with your marketing efforts.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any attempt to aim something somewhere while handicapped in doing so."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "attempt",
          "attempt"
        ],
        [
          "aim",
          "aim"
        ],
        [
          "handicap",
          "handicap"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension) Any attempt to aim something somewhere while handicapped in doing so."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "A children's game involving pinning a piece of material on a specified spot while blindfolded.",
      "word": "ezeltje-prik"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "pin the tail on the donkey"
  ],
  "word": "pin the tail on the donkey"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 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.