See pull strings in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for pull strings meaning in English (5.9kB)
{
"etymology_text": "Suggesting a puppet show, where characters are moved by pulling attached strings.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "pulls strings",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "pulling strings",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "pulled strings",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pulled strings",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "pull strings (third-person singular simple present pulls strings, present participle pulling strings, simple past and past participle pulled strings)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He has the job not because of talent, but because his dad pulled strings with the boss."
}
],
"glosses": [
"To manipulate a situation, especially by asking favours of others; to use one's influence with others to attain a desired goal."
],
"id": "en-pull_strings-en-verb-WHgnJbIt",
"links": [
[
"manipulate",
"manipulate"
],
[
"favours",
"favours"
],
[
"influence",
"influence"
],
[
"goal",
"goal"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive, idiomatic) To manipulate a situation, especially by asking favours of others; to use one's influence with others to attain a desired goal."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to use one's influence with others",
"word": "faire jouer ses relations"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to use one's influence with others",
"word": "pistonner"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "to use one's influence with others",
"word": "whakakawe"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to use one's influence with others",
"word": "mexer os pauzinhos"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "10 90",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "We know who pulls the strings around here.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1986, “Master of Puppets”, in Metallica (music), Master of Puppets",
"text": "Master of Puppets, I'm pulling your strings",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1992 April 3, Richard Berke, “The 1992 Campaign: Political Memo”, in New York Times, retrieved 2010-07-18",
"text": "Mr. Brown is touchy about accusations that he is a packaged candidate, and bristles at the suggestion that Mr. Caddell pulls his strings.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2003 July 7, Michael Elliott et al., “The War That Never Ends”, in Time",
"text": "\"It may have begun that way,\" says a senior Pentagon official, \"but as these attacks grow more numerous, you get the sense that there's someone pulling the strings at a higher level.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport",
"text": "But with the lively Dos Santos pulling the strings behind strikers Pavlyuchenko and Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2020 July 29, Paul Clifton, “Rail nationalisation moves a step closer”, in Rail, page 8",
"text": "\"The DfT is pulling all the strings. It is making every decision. It is telling companies what they can and cannot spend, right down to very small amounts of money. That's the reason they will declare the train operators to be under public control.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"(intransitive, idiomatic, often with “the” or a possessive adjective (such as “his”) before “strings”, pull one's strings) To control a person, organization, or situation by operating behind the scenes, as a puppeteer controls a marionette.",
"To control a person, organization, or situation by operating behind the scenes, as a puppeteer controls a marionette."
],
"id": "en-pull_strings-en-verb-DB6HuOoV",
"links": [
[
"pull one's strings",
"pull one's strings"
],
[
"control",
"control"
],
[
"person",
"person"
],
[
"organization",
"organization"
],
[
"situation",
"situation"
],
[
"behind the scenes",
"behind the scenes"
],
[
"puppeteer",
"puppeteer"
],
[
"marionette",
"marionette"
]
],
"qualifier": "pull one's strings",
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive, idiomatic, often with “the” or a possessive adjective (such as “his”) before “strings”, pull one's strings) To control a person, organization, or situation by operating behind the scenes, as a puppeteer controls a marionette."
],
"raw_tags": [
"with “the” or a possessive adjective (such as “his”) before “strings”"
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "18 82",
"english": "shares a theme of control",
"word": "hold the purse strings"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "20 80",
"word": "pull the strings"
},
{
"_dis1": "20 80",
"word": "pull a few strings"
},
{
"_dis1": "20 80",
"word": "pull some strings"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive",
"often"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "1 99",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"word": "tirer les ficelles"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99",
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"word": "trekke i trådene"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "pociągać za sznurki"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99",
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"word": "manipular"
},
{
"_dis1": "1 99",
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "zapravljatʹ",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "заправлять"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-pull strings.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f0/En-au-pull_strings.ogg/En-au-pull_strings.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/En-au-pull_strings.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "pull strings"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with audio links",
"English verbs"
],
"etymology_text": "Suggesting a puppet show, where characters are moved by pulling attached strings.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "pulls strings",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "pulling strings",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "pulled strings",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pulled strings",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "pull strings (third-person singular simple present pulls strings, present participle pulling strings, simple past and past participle pulled strings)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"english": "shares a theme of control",
"word": "hold the purse strings"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English intransitive verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He has the job not because of talent, but because his dad pulled strings with the boss."
}
],
"glosses": [
"To manipulate a situation, especially by asking favours of others; to use one's influence with others to attain a desired goal."
],
"links": [
[
"manipulate",
"manipulate"
],
[
"favours",
"favours"
],
[
"influence",
"influence"
],
[
"goal",
"goal"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive, idiomatic) To manipulate a situation, especially by asking favours of others; to use one's influence with others to attain a desired goal."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English intransitive verbs",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "We know who pulls the strings around here.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1986, “Master of Puppets”, in Metallica (music), Master of Puppets",
"text": "Master of Puppets, I'm pulling your strings",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1992 April 3, Richard Berke, “The 1992 Campaign: Political Memo”, in New York Times, retrieved 2010-07-18",
"text": "Mr. Brown is touchy about accusations that he is a packaged candidate, and bristles at the suggestion that Mr. Caddell pulls his strings.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2003 July 7, Michael Elliott et al., “The War That Never Ends”, in Time",
"text": "\"It may have begun that way,\" says a senior Pentagon official, \"but as these attacks grow more numerous, you get the sense that there's someone pulling the strings at a higher level.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport",
"text": "But with the lively Dos Santos pulling the strings behind strikers Pavlyuchenko and Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2020 July 29, Paul Clifton, “Rail nationalisation moves a step closer”, in Rail, page 8",
"text": "\"The DfT is pulling all the strings. It is making every decision. It is telling companies what they can and cannot spend, right down to very small amounts of money. That's the reason they will declare the train operators to be under public control.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"(intransitive, idiomatic, often with “the” or a possessive adjective (such as “his”) before “strings”, pull one's strings) To control a person, organization, or situation by operating behind the scenes, as a puppeteer controls a marionette.",
"To control a person, organization, or situation by operating behind the scenes, as a puppeteer controls a marionette."
],
"links": [
[
"pull one's strings",
"pull one's strings"
],
[
"control",
"control"
],
[
"person",
"person"
],
[
"organization",
"organization"
],
[
"situation",
"situation"
],
[
"behind the scenes",
"behind the scenes"
],
[
"puppeteer",
"puppeteer"
],
[
"marionette",
"marionette"
]
],
"qualifier": "pull one's strings",
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive, idiomatic, often with “the” or a possessive adjective (such as “his”) before “strings”, pull one's strings) To control a person, organization, or situation by operating behind the scenes, as a puppeteer controls a marionette."
],
"raw_tags": [
"with “the” or a possessive adjective (such as “his”) before “strings”"
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive",
"often"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-pull strings.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f0/En-au-pull_strings.ogg/En-au-pull_strings.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/En-au-pull_strings.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pull the strings"
},
{
"word": "pull a few strings"
},
{
"word": "pull some strings"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to use one's influence with others",
"word": "faire jouer ses relations"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to use one's influence with others",
"word": "pistonner"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "to use one's influence with others",
"word": "whakakawe"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to use one's influence with others",
"word": "mexer os pauzinhos"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"word": "tirer les ficelles"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"word": "trekke i trådene"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "pociągać za sznurki"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"word": "manipular"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "zapravljatʹ",
"sense": "to control behind the scenes",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "заправлять"
}
],
"word": "pull strings"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.