"reach for the sky" meaning in English

See reach for the sky in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

Audio: En-au-reach for the sky.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{en-interj}} reach for the sky
  1. Surrender (by putting your hands up)! Synonyms: hands up, stick 'em up, reach for the skies
    Sense id: en-reach_for_the_sky-en-intj-4U8DW9lI Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 47 53

Verb

Audio: En-au-reach for the sky.ogg [Australia] Forms: reaches for the sky [present, singular, third-person], reaching for the sky [participle, present], reached for the sky [participle, past], reached for the sky [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} reach for the sky (third-person singular simple present reaches for the sky, present participle reaching for the sky, simple past and past participle reached for the sky)
  1. (idiomatic, informal) To aim for the best possible outcome. Tags: idiomatic, informal Synonyms: reach for the stars, aim for the sky Related terms: the sky is the limit
    Sense id: en-reach_for_the_sky-en-verb-cwKbTKxU Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 47 53

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for reach for the sky meaning in English (3.6kB)

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      "name": "en-interj"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Surrender (by putting your hands up)!"
      ],
      "id": "en-reach_for_the_sky-en-intj-4U8DW9lI",
      "links": [
        [
          "Surrender",
          "surrender"
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      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hands up"
        },
        {
          "word": "stick 'em up"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "70 30",
          "word": "reach for the skies"
        }
      ]
    }
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    {
      "audio": "En-au-reach for the sky.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/ce/En-au-reach_for_the_sky.ogg/En-au-reach_for_the_sky.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/En-au-reach_for_the_sky.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "reach for the sky"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "reaches for the sky",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "reaching for the sky",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "reached for the sky",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "reached for the sky",
      "tags": [
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1993, Robert Emmett Curran, The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University: From academy to university, 1789-1889, Georgetown University Press, page 27",
          "text": "Far better to start modestly and grow gradually than to reach for the sky with grand plans that could only end in the collapse of the institution.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Alfred Lubrano, Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams, John Wiley & Sons, page 33",
          "text": "Resigned to his blue-collar status, Donna's father's belief was “Why reach for the sky when you can be happy on earth?” Donna says, “My dad was trying to save me from disappointment. The daughter of peasant stock shouldn't strive to be in the ruling class, he thought.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Gideon Arulmani, Anuradha J. Bakshi, Frederick T. L. Leong, A. G. Watts, Handbook of Career Development: International Perspectives, Springer Science & Business Media, page 306",
          "text": "Indeed, career counseling encourages individuals to “reach for the sky.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To aim for the best possible outcome."
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      "id": "en-reach_for_the_sky-en-verb-cwKbTKxU",
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        [
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          "possible"
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          "outcome"
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, informal) To aim for the best possible outcome."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "the sky is the limit"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "reach for the stars"
        },
        {
          "word": "aim for the sky"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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        "informal"
      ]
    }
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/En-au-reach_for_the_sky.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
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  "word": "reach for the sky"
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{
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
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    {
      "glosses": [
        "Surrender (by putting your hands up)!"
      ],
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          "Surrender",
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      ],
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          "word": "hands up"
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      "tags": [
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "reach for the skies"
    }
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  "word": "reach for the sky"
}

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    "English idioms",
    "English interjections",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
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  ],
  "forms": [
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      "form": "reaches for the sky",
      "tags": [
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        "singular",
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    },
    {
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      "tags": [
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    {
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      "form": "reached for the sky",
      "tags": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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      "word": "the sky is the limit"
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          "ref": "1993, Robert Emmett Curran, The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University: From academy to university, 1789-1889, Georgetown University Press, page 27",
          "text": "Far better to start modestly and grow gradually than to reach for the sky with grand plans that could only end in the collapse of the institution.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Alfred Lubrano, Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams, John Wiley & Sons, page 33",
          "text": "Resigned to his blue-collar status, Donna's father's belief was “Why reach for the sky when you can be happy on earth?” Donna says, “My dad was trying to save me from disappointment. The daughter of peasant stock shouldn't strive to be in the ruling class, he thought.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Gideon Arulmani, Anuradha J. Bakshi, Frederick T. L. Leong, A. G. Watts, Handbook of Career Development: International Perspectives, Springer Science & Business Media, page 306",
          "text": "Indeed, career counseling encourages individuals to “reach for the sky.”",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To aim for the best possible outcome."
      ],
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        [
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, informal) To aim for the best possible outcome."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "reach for the stars"
        },
        {
          "word": "aim for the sky"
        }
      ],
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/En-au-reach_for_the_sky.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "reach for the skies"
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  "word": "reach for the sky"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 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.