"put one's shoulder to the wheel" meaning in English

See put one's shoulder to the wheel in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: puts one's shoulder to the wheel [present, singular, third-person], putting one's shoulder to the wheel [participle, present], put one's shoulder to the wheel [participle, past], put one's shoulder to the wheel [past]
Etymology: From the literal action of attempting to free a cart from a rut or muddy ground. Head templates: {{en-verb|put<,,put> one's shoulder to the wheel}} put one's shoulder to the wheel (third-person singular simple present puts one's shoulder to the wheel, present participle putting one's shoulder to the wheel, simple past and past participle put one's shoulder to the wheel)
  1. (figuratively) Synonym of strive: To work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus. Tags: figuratively Synonyms: strive [synonym, synonym-of] Related terms: set one's shoulder to the wheel, ear to the ground, keep one's eye on the ball

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for put one's shoulder to the wheel meaning in English (3.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the literal action of attempting to free a cart from a rut or muddy ground.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "puts one's shoulder to the wheel",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "putting one's shoulder to the wheel",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put one's shoulder to the wheel",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put one's shoulder to the wheel",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "put<,,put> one's shoulder to the wheel"
      },
      "expansion": "put one's shoulder to the wheel (third-person singular simple present puts one's shoulder to the wheel, present participle putting one's shoulder to the wheel, simple past and past participle put one's shoulder to the wheel)",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "When he got to law school he knew he'd have to put his shoulder to the wheel to succeed.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1935, Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket, page 1 & 7",
          "text": "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives... Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and \"we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,\" but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket—and are safely pocketed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Shoshana Zuboff, chapter 9, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism",
          "text": "Along the way, companies such as Facebook and Google employ every useful foot soldier, including social scientists such as [Alexander] Kogan who are willing to put their shoulders to the wheel as they help the company learn, perfect, and integrate the cutting-edge methods that can conquer the next frontier […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of strive: To work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus."
      ],
      "id": "en-put_one's_shoulder_to_the_wheel-en-verb-wD4AbIh9",
      "links": [
        [
          "strive",
          "strive#English"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "hard",
          "hard"
        ],
        [
          "complete",
          "complete"
        ],
        [
          "activity",
          "activity"
        ],
        [
          "one",
          "one"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "focus",
          "focus"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) Synonym of strive: To work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "set one's shoulder to the wheel"
        },
        {
          "word": "ear to the ground"
        },
        {
          "word": "keep one's eye on the ball"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "extra": "To work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus",
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "strive"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "put one's shoulder to the wheel"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the literal action of attempting to free a cart from a rut or muddy ground.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "puts one's shoulder to the wheel",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "putting one's shoulder to the wheel",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put one's shoulder to the wheel",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put one's shoulder to the wheel",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "put<,,put> one's shoulder to the wheel"
      },
      "expansion": "put one's shoulder to the wheel (third-person singular simple present puts one's shoulder to the wheel, present participle putting one's shoulder to the wheel, simple past and past participle put one's shoulder to the wheel)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "set one's shoulder to the wheel"
    },
    {
      "word": "ear to the ground"
    },
    {
      "word": "keep one's eye on the ball"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "When he got to law school he knew he'd have to put his shoulder to the wheel to succeed.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1935, Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket, page 1 & 7",
          "text": "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives... Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and \"we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,\" but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket—and are safely pocketed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Shoshana Zuboff, chapter 9, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism",
          "text": "Along the way, companies such as Facebook and Google employ every useful foot soldier, including social scientists such as [Alexander] Kogan who are willing to put their shoulders to the wheel as they help the company learn, perfect, and integrate the cutting-edge methods that can conquer the next frontier […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of strive: To work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "strive",
          "strive#English"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "hard",
          "hard"
        ],
        [
          "complete",
          "complete"
        ],
        [
          "activity",
          "activity"
        ],
        [
          "one",
          "one"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "focus",
          "focus"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) Synonym of strive: To work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "extra": "To work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus",
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "strive"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "put one's shoulder to the wheel"
}

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.