"put a gun to someone's head" meaning in English

See put a gun to someone's head in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-put a gun to someone's head.ogg [Australia] Forms: puts a gun to someone's head [present, singular, third-person], putting a gun to someone's head [participle, present], put a gun to someone's head [participle, past], put a gun to someone's head [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|put<,,put> a gun to someone's head}} put a gun to someone's head (third-person singular simple present puts a gun to someone's head, present participle putting a gun to someone's head, simple past and past participle put a gun to someone's head)
  1. (idiomatic) To compel someone (to do something); to create a situation in which someone has no alternative course of action. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: hold a gun to someone's head
    Sense id: en-put_a_gun_to_someone's_head-en-verb-O1NNXEcV Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for put a gun to someone's head meaning in English (3.1kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "puts a gun to someone's head",
      "tags": [
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    {
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    {
      "form": "put a gun to someone's head",
      "tags": [
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    {
      "form": "put a gun to someone's head",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988 February 28, “The Region: D'Amato Strays, Willfully, From New York Party Line”, in New York Times, retrieved 2018-11-27",
          "text": "Richard Rosenbaum had deferred to Mr. D'Amato in leading the Dole effort in the state, but Mr. D'Amato delayed organizing it until, as Westchester County legislator Tim Carey put it, \"Dole put a gun to his head.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004 September 23, Carol D. Leonnig, “Tobacco Industry Admits Mistakes”, in Washington Post, retrieved 2018-11-27",
          "text": "\"[T]o say the industry hasn't changed is to ignore reality,\" Yerrid said. \"Now, they changed because we put a gun to their head, not because they're nice people and wanted to change.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 December 21, Rebecca Smith, “Gordon Brown 'to force GPs to work evenings'”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2018-11-27",
          "text": "\"They have effectively put a gun to our head and said if we don't accept their proposal they will impose a more Draconian contract.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 January 6, Peter Mandelson, “Cameron's absurd behaviour over EU membership”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 2018-11-27",
          "text": "The prime minister . . . will be disappointed if he thinks he can put a gun to their heads to begin renegotiating Britain's EU membership and then dictate when it will end.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To compel someone (to do something); to create a situation in which someone has no alternative course of action."
      ],
      "id": "en-put_a_gun_to_someone's_head-en-verb-O1NNXEcV",
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        "(idiomatic) To compel someone (to do something); to create a situation in which someone has no alternative course of action."
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        {
          "word": "hold a gun to someone's head"
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      "tags": [
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      "form": "put a gun to someone's head",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988 February 28, “The Region: D'Amato Strays, Willfully, From New York Party Line”, in New York Times, retrieved 2018-11-27",
          "text": "Richard Rosenbaum had deferred to Mr. D'Amato in leading the Dole effort in the state, but Mr. D'Amato delayed organizing it until, as Westchester County legislator Tim Carey put it, \"Dole put a gun to his head.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2004 September 23, Carol D. Leonnig, “Tobacco Industry Admits Mistakes”, in Washington Post, retrieved 2018-11-27",
          "text": "\"[T]o say the industry hasn't changed is to ignore reality,\" Yerrid said. \"Now, they changed because we put a gun to their head, not because they're nice people and wanted to change.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 December 21, Rebecca Smith, “Gordon Brown 'to force GPs to work evenings'”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2018-11-27",
          "text": "\"They have effectively put a gun to our head and said if we don't accept their proposal they will impose a more Draconian contract.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 January 6, Peter Mandelson, “Cameron's absurd behaviour over EU membership”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 2018-11-27",
          "text": "The prime minister . . . will be disappointed if he thinks he can put a gun to their heads to begin renegotiating Britain's EU membership and then dictate when it will end.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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        "(idiomatic) To compel someone (to do something); to create a situation in which someone has no alternative course of action."
      ],
      "tags": [
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/En-au-put_a_gun_to_someone%27s_head.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "hold a gun to someone's head"
    }
  ],
  "word": "put a gun to someone's head"
}

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.