See play both sides against the middle in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for play both sides against the middle meaning in English (4.3kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "plays both sides against the middle",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "playing both sides against the middle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "played both sides against the middle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "played both sides against the middle",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "play both sides against the middle (third-person singular simple present plays both sides against the middle, present participle playing both sides against the middle, simple past and past participle played both sides against the middle)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Finnish links with redundant wikilinks",
"parents": [
"Links with redundant wikilinks",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1932, George Jean Nathan, Henry Louis Mencken, The American Mercury, page 383",
"text": "Some of the lesser Democrats, especially in the remoter reaches of the Bible country, have the same yearning, but they are not as numerous as the Republicans, all of whom have been greatly embarrassed by Dr. Hoover's laborious efforts to play both sides against the middle.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1978, Intercontinental Press/Inprecor, volume 16, page 1127",
"text": "While the Kremlin stood by and tried to play both sides against the middle, the defeat of the Palestinians in Lebanon helped establish the political atmosphere that enabled Sadat to make his trip to Jerusalem.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1999, Margaret Jones, Patsy: the Life and Times of Patsy Cline, page 50",
"text": "Patsy may have been playing both sides against the middle in an effort to get her career going and to get herself out from under Peer's pressuring and the sexual demands he placed on her.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2005, T. J. English, Paddy Whacked: the Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster, page 133",
"text": "Luciano went about playing both sides against the middle until the two families went at each other in the famously bloody Castellamarese War later in the decade...",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To manipulate opponents or competitors in a manner which benefits the manipulator."
],
"id": "en-play_both_sides_against_the_middle-en-verb-zs-ol0mc",
"links": [
[
"manipulate",
"manipulate"
],
[
"opponent",
"opponent"
],
[
"competitor",
"competitor"
],
[
"benefit",
"benefit"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To manipulate opponents or competitors in a manner which benefits the manipulator."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "play both ends against the middle"
},
{
"word": "work both ends against the middle"
},
{
"word": "work both sides against the middle"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "hrát to na obě strany"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "sedět na dvou židlích"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "být ramenář"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "pelata omaan pussiinsa"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "siedzieć na dwóch stołkach"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-play both sides against the middle.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a1/En-au-play_both_sides_against_the_middle.ogg/En-au-play_both_sides_against_the_middle.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/En-au-play_both_sides_against_the_middle.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "play both sides against the middle"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "plays both sides against the middle",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "playing both sides against the middle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "played both sides against the middle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "played both sides against the middle",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "play both sides against the middle (third-person singular simple present plays both sides against the middle, present participle playing both sides against the middle, simple past and past participle played both sides against the middle)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs",
"Finnish links with redundant wikilinks",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned",
"Translation table header lacks gloss"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1932, George Jean Nathan, Henry Louis Mencken, The American Mercury, page 383",
"text": "Some of the lesser Democrats, especially in the remoter reaches of the Bible country, have the same yearning, but they are not as numerous as the Republicans, all of whom have been greatly embarrassed by Dr. Hoover's laborious efforts to play both sides against the middle.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1978, Intercontinental Press/Inprecor, volume 16, page 1127",
"text": "While the Kremlin stood by and tried to play both sides against the middle, the defeat of the Palestinians in Lebanon helped establish the political atmosphere that enabled Sadat to make his trip to Jerusalem.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1999, Margaret Jones, Patsy: the Life and Times of Patsy Cline, page 50",
"text": "Patsy may have been playing both sides against the middle in an effort to get her career going and to get herself out from under Peer's pressuring and the sexual demands he placed on her.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2005, T. J. English, Paddy Whacked: the Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster, page 133",
"text": "Luciano went about playing both sides against the middle until the two families went at each other in the famously bloody Castellamarese War later in the decade...",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To manipulate opponents or competitors in a manner which benefits the manipulator."
],
"links": [
[
"manipulate",
"manipulate"
],
[
"opponent",
"opponent"
],
[
"competitor",
"competitor"
],
[
"benefit",
"benefit"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To manipulate opponents or competitors in a manner which benefits the manipulator."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-play both sides against the middle.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a1/En-au-play_both_sides_against_the_middle.ogg/En-au-play_both_sides_against_the_middle.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/En-au-play_both_sides_against_the_middle.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "play both ends against the middle"
},
{
"word": "work both ends against the middle"
},
{
"word": "work both sides against the middle"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "hrát to na obě strany"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "sedět na dvou židlích"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "být ramenář"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "pelata omaan pussiinsa"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "siedzieć na dwóch stołkach"
}
],
"word": "play both sides against the middle"
}
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.