"put a spoke in someone's wheel" meaning in English

See put a spoke in someone's wheel in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: puts a spoke in someone's wheel [present, singular, third-person], putting a spoke in someone's wheel [participle, present], put a spoke in someone's wheel [participle, past], put a spoke in someone's wheel [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|put<,,put> a spoke in someone's wheel}} put a spoke in someone's wheel (third-person singular simple present puts a spoke in someone's wheel, present participle putting a spoke in someone's wheel, simple past and past participle put a spoke in someone's wheel)
  1. To thwart or obstruct someone in the execution of some design. Synonyms: fix someone's flint, settle someone's hash Related terms: throw a spanner in the works, throw a wrench in the works Translations: házet klacky pod nohy (Czech), sætte en kæp i hjulet (Danish), stokken in de wielen steken (Dutch), einen Strich durch die Rechnung machen (German), thọc gậy bánh xe (Vietnamese), torri ar chwarae rhywun (Welsh)

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "puts a spoke in someone's wheel",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "putting a spoke in someone's wheel",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put a spoke in someone's wheel",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put a spoke in someone's wheel",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      },
      "expansion": "put a spoke in someone's wheel (third-person singular simple present puts a spoke in someone's wheel, present participle putting a spoke in someone's wheel, simple past and past participle put a spoke in someone's wheel)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
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          "kind": "other",
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        },
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        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1951 December, T. B. Sands, “Some Railway Byways in the Vale of Glamorgan”, in Railway Magazine, page 838:",
          "text": "The original branch was 5¾ miles long, from Llantrisant to Cowbridge only, but in 1889, the T.V.R. [Taff Vale Railway] obtained powers […] to continue the line for 6½ miles south to the coast at Aberthaw, ostensibly for the purpose of serving the important limestone works there, but one suspects other motives, including an understandable desire on the part of the T.V.R. to put a spoke in the wheel of the oncoming Barry Railway !",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To thwart or obstruct someone in the execution of some design."
      ],
      "id": "en-put_a_spoke_in_someone's_wheel-en-verb-yLNm4o7u",
      "links": [
        [
          "thwart",
          "thwart"
        ],
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          "obstruct",
          "obstruct"
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        [
          "design",
          "design"
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      "related": [
        {
          "word": "throw a spanner in the works"
        },
        {
          "word": "throw a wrench in the works"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fix someone's flint"
        },
        {
          "word": "settle someone's hash"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cs",
          "lang": "Czech",
          "word": "házet klacky pod nohy"
        },
        {
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "word": "sætte en kæp i hjulet"
        },
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "word": "stokken in de wielen steken"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "word": "einen Strich durch die Rechnung machen"
        },
        {
          "code": "vi",
          "lang": "Vietnamese",
          "word": "thọc gậy bánh xe"
        },
        {
          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "word": "torri ar chwarae rhywun"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "put a spoke in someone's wheel"
}
{
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    {
      "form": "puts a spoke in someone's wheel",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "putting a spoke in someone's wheel",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put a spoke in someone's wheel",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put a spoke in someone's wheel",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "put<,,put> a spoke in someone's wheel"
      },
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    }
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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      "word": "throw a spanner in the works"
    },
    {
      "word": "throw a wrench in the works"
    }
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        "English verbs",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
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        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Czech translations",
        "Terms with Danish translations",
        "Terms with Dutch translations",
        "Terms with German translations",
        "Terms with Vietnamese translations",
        "Terms with Welsh translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1951 December, T. B. Sands, “Some Railway Byways in the Vale of Glamorgan”, in Railway Magazine, page 838:",
          "text": "The original branch was 5¾ miles long, from Llantrisant to Cowbridge only, but in 1889, the T.V.R. [Taff Vale Railway] obtained powers […] to continue the line for 6½ miles south to the coast at Aberthaw, ostensibly for the purpose of serving the important limestone works there, but one suspects other motives, including an understandable desire on the part of the T.V.R. to put a spoke in the wheel of the oncoming Barry Railway !",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To thwart or obstruct someone in the execution of some design."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "thwart",
          "thwart"
        ],
        [
          "obstruct",
          "obstruct"
        ],
        [
          "execution",
          "execution"
        ],
        [
          "design",
          "design"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fix someone's flint"
        },
        {
          "word": "settle someone's hash"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cs",
      "lang": "Czech",
      "word": "házet klacky pod nohy"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "word": "sætte en kæp i hjulet"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "word": "stokken in de wielen steken"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "word": "einen Strich durch die Rechnung machen"
    },
    {
      "code": "vi",
      "lang": "Vietnamese",
      "word": "thọc gậy bánh xe"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "word": "torri ar chwarae rhywun"
    }
  ],
  "word": "put a spoke in someone's wheel"
}

Download raw JSONL data for put a spoke in someone's wheel meaning in English (2.6kB)

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  "path": [
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  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "verb",
  "title": "put a spoke in someone's wheel",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.