"pull one's punches" meaning in English

See pull one's punches in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-pull one's punches.ogg Forms: pulls one's punches [present, singular, third-person], pulling one's punches [participle, present], pulled one's punches [participle, past], pulled one's punches [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} pull one's punches (third-person singular simple present pulls one's punches, present participle pulling one's punches, simple past and past participle pulled one's punches)
  1. (idiomatic) Alternative form of pull punches Tags: alt-of, alternative, idiomatic Alternative form of: pull punches
    Sense id: en-pull_one's_punches-en-verb-gHygwfC4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English predicates, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls one's punches",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling one's punches",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled one's punches",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled one's punches",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull one's punches (third-person singular simple present pulls one's punches, present participle pulling one's punches, simple past and past participle pulled one's punches)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "pull punches"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2016, Liz Nugent, Lying In Wait, →ISBN, page 84:",
          "text": "Eleanor and I tolerated each other most of the time, but she never pulled her punches",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of pull punches"
      ],
      "id": "en-pull_one's_punches-en-verb-gHygwfC4",
      "links": [
        [
          "pull punches",
          "pull punches#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Alternative form of pull punches"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pull one's punches.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/70/En-au-pull_one%27s_punches.ogg/En-au-pull_one%27s_punches.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/En-au-pull_one%27s_punches.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull one's punches"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls one's punches",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling one's punches",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled one's punches",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled one's punches",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull one's punches (third-person singular simple present pulls one's punches, present participle pulling one's punches, simple past and past participle pulled one's punches)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "pull punches"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2016, Liz Nugent, Lying In Wait, →ISBN, page 84:",
          "text": "Eleanor and I tolerated each other most of the time, but she never pulled her punches",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of pull punches"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "pull punches",
          "pull punches#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Alternative form of pull punches"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pull one's punches.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/70/En-au-pull_one%27s_punches.ogg/En-au-pull_one%27s_punches.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/En-au-pull_one%27s_punches.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull one's punches"
}

Download raw JSONL data for pull one's punches meaning in English (1.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (95d2be1 and 64224ec). 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.