"shoot an elephant with a BB gun" meaning in English

See shoot an elephant with a BB gun in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shoot an elephant with a BB gun.wav Forms: shoots an elephant with a BB gun [present, singular, third-person], shooting an elephant with a BB gun [participle, present], shot an elephant with a BB gun [participle, past], shot an elephant with a BB gun [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|shoot<,,shot> an elephant with a BB gun}} shoot an elephant with a BB gun (third-person singular simple present shoots an elephant with a BB gun, present participle shooting an elephant with a BB gun, simple past and past participle shot an elephant with a BB gun)
  1. To attempt an action with drastically insufficient force, effort, or tools.
    Sense id: en-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun-en-verb-2inBwfbC Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shoots an elephant with a BB gun",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shooting an elephant with a BB gun",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shot an elephant with a BB gun",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shot an elephant with a BB gun",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "shoot<,,shot> an elephant with a BB gun"
      },
      "expansion": "shoot an elephant with a BB gun (third-person singular simple present shoots an elephant with a BB gun, present participle shooting an elephant with a BB gun, simple past and past participle shot an elephant with a BB gun)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "use a sledgehammer to crack a nut"
        }
      ],
      "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 attempt an action with drastically insufficient force, effort, or tools."
      ],
      "id": "en-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun-en-verb-2inBwfbC",
      "links": [
        [
          "attempt",
          "attempt"
        ],
        [
          "force",
          "force"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shoot an elephant with a BB gun.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/40/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/40/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "shoot an elephant with a BB gun"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shoots an elephant with a BB gun",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shooting an elephant with a BB gun",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shot an elephant with a BB gun",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shot an elephant with a BB gun",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "shoot<,,shot> an elephant with a BB gun"
      },
      "expansion": "shoot an elephant with a BB gun (third-person singular simple present shoots an elephant with a BB gun, present participle shooting an elephant with a BB gun, simple past and past participle shot an elephant with a BB gun)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "use a sledgehammer to crack a nut"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To attempt an action with drastically insufficient force, effort, or tools."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "attempt",
          "attempt"
        ],
        [
          "force",
          "force"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shoot an elephant with a BB gun.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/40/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/40/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-shoot_an_elephant_with_a_BB_gun.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "shoot an elephant with a BB gun"
}

Download raw JSONL data for shoot an elephant with a BB gun meaning in English (1.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (3dadd05 and f1c2b61). 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.