pull the devil by the tail in English

Forms: pulls the devil by the tail [present, singular, third-person], pulling the devil by the tail [participle, present], pulled the devil by the tail [participle, past], pulled the devil by the tail [past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} pull the devil by the tail (third-person singular simple present pulls the devil by the tail, present participle pulling the devil by the tail, simple past and past participle pulled the devil by the tail)

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls the devil by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling the devil by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled the devil by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled the devil by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull the devil by the tail (third-person singular simple present pulls the devil by the tail, present participle pulling the devil by the tail, simple past and past participle pulled the devil by the tail)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be struggling with poverty, constantly in money difficulties."
      ],
      "id": "en-pull_the_devil_by_the_tail-en-verb-idxGCxKL",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(of a person) To be struggling with poverty, constantly in money difficulties."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of a person"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull the devil by the tail"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls the devil by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling the devil by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled the devil by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled the devil by the tail",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull the devil by the tail (third-person singular simple present pulls the devil by the tail, present participle pulling the devil by the tail, simple past and past participle pulled the devil by the tail)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be struggling with poverty, constantly in money difficulties."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(of a person) To be struggling with poverty, constantly in money difficulties."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of a person"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull the devil by the tail"
}

Download raw JSONL data for pull the devil by the tail meaning in English (1.1kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-01 using wiktextract (89ebc88 and e74c913). 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.

"pull the devil by the tail" meaning in English

Verb