"piss in the wind" meaning in English

See piss in the wind in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: pisses in the wind [present, singular, third-person], pissing in the wind [participle, present], pissed in the wind [participle, past], pissed in the wind [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} piss in the wind (third-person singular simple present pisses in the wind, present participle pissing in the wind, simple past and past participle pissed in the wind)
  1. (figuratively, vulgar) To waste time on a pointless or fruitless task; do something that is ineffective or counterproductive. Tags: figuratively, vulgar Synonyms: fart in a windstorm, piss up a rope, whistle in the wind, spit into the wind, spit in the wind, piss into the wind
    Sense id: en-piss_in_the_wind-en-verb-RqQHMbKn Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for piss in the wind meaning in English (1.5kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pisses in the wind",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pissing in the wind",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pissed in the wind",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pissed in the wind",
      "tags": [
        "past"
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  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "piss in the wind (third-person singular simple present pisses in the wind, present participle pissing in the wind, simple past and past participle pissed in the wind)",
      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "You can make a complaint if you like, but you'll just be pissing in the wind."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To waste time on a pointless or fruitless task; do something that is ineffective or counterproductive."
      ],
      "id": "en-piss_in_the_wind-en-verb-RqQHMbKn",
      "links": [
        [
          "ineffective",
          "ineffective"
        ],
        [
          "counterproductive",
          "counterproductive"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively, vulgar) To waste time on a pointless or fruitless task; do something that is ineffective or counterproductive."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fart in a windstorm"
        },
        {
          "word": "piss up a rope"
        },
        {
          "word": "whistle in the wind"
        },
        {
          "word": "spit into the wind"
        },
        {
          "word": "spit in the wind"
        },
        {
          "word": "piss into the wind"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "piss in the wind"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pisses in the wind",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pissing in the wind",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pissed in the wind",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pissed in the wind",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "piss in the wind (third-person singular simple present pisses in the wind, present participle pissing in the wind, simple past and past participle pissed in the wind)",
      "name": "en-verb"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "You can make a complaint if you like, but you'll just be pissing in the wind."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To waste time on a pointless or fruitless task; do something that is ineffective or counterproductive."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "ineffective",
          "ineffective"
        ],
        [
          "counterproductive",
          "counterproductive"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively, vulgar) To waste time on a pointless or fruitless task; do something that is ineffective or counterproductive."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "fart in a windstorm"
    },
    {
      "word": "piss up a rope"
    },
    {
      "word": "whistle in the wind"
    },
    {
      "word": "spit into the wind"
    },
    {
      "word": "spit in the wind"
    },
    {
      "word": "piss into the wind"
    }
  ],
  "word": "piss in the wind"
}

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.