"pull one's weight" meaning in English

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

Verb

Audio: En-au-pull one's weight.ogg [Australia] Forms: pulls one's weight [present, singular, third-person], pulling one's weight [participle, present], pulled one's weight [participle, past], pulled one's weight [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} pull one's weight (third-person singular simple present pulls one's weight, present participle pulling one's weight, simple past and past participle pulled one's weight)
  1. (idiomatic) To contribute fairly and proportionately to a group effort; to do the work that one is obligated to. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: carry one's weight, pull one's own weight Related terms: get in the boat and row, do a lot of work
    Sense id: en-pull_one's_weight-en-verb-s2VOvCwa Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for pull one's weight meaning in English (1.9kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull one's weight (third-person singular simple present pulls one's weight, present participle pulling one's weight, simple past and past participle pulled one's weight)",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He isn't really pulling his weight at work.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "If one shares a flat one should be prepared to pull one’s weight in cleaning it.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To contribute fairly and proportionately to a group effort; to do the work that one is obligated to."
      ],
      "id": "en-pull_one's_weight-en-verb-s2VOvCwa",
      "links": [
        [
          "contribute",
          "contribute"
        ],
        [
          "fair",
          "fair"
        ],
        [
          "proportionate",
          "proportionate"
        ],
        [
          "obligate",
          "obligate"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To contribute fairly and proportionately to a group effort; to do the work that one is obligated to."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "get in the boat and row"
        },
        {
          "word": "do a lot of work"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "carry one's weight"
        },
        {
          "word": "pull one's own weight"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pull one's weight.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5f/En-au-pull_one%27s_weight.ogg/En-au-pull_one%27s_weight.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/En-au-pull_one%27s_weight.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull one's weight"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled one's weight",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull one's weight (third-person singular simple present pulls one's weight, present participle pulling one's weight, simple past and past participle pulled one's weight)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "get in the boat and row"
    },
    {
      "word": "do a lot of work"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He isn't really pulling his weight at work.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "If one shares a flat one should be prepared to pull one’s weight in cleaning it.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To contribute fairly and proportionately to a group effort; to do the work that one is obligated to."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "contribute",
          "contribute"
        ],
        [
          "fair",
          "fair"
        ],
        [
          "proportionate",
          "proportionate"
        ],
        [
          "obligate",
          "obligate"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To contribute fairly and proportionately to a group effort; to do the work that one is obligated to."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "carry one's weight"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pull one's weight.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5f/En-au-pull_one%27s_weight.ogg/En-au-pull_one%27s_weight.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/En-au-pull_one%27s_weight.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "pull one's own weight"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull one's weight"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 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.