spanner in the works in English

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{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spanners in the works",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "spanners in the works"
      },
      "expansion": "spanner in the works (plural spanners in the works)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              50,
              70
            ]
          ],
          "text": "The kids' involvement was unfortunately more of a spanner in the works than a helpful contribution toward Daddy's progress on the task, but he gamely pretended to be thankful anyway.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that disrupts smooth operation or functioning."
      ],
      "id": "en-spanner_in_the_works-en-noun-QKPxu2F0",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly UK) Something that disrupts smooth operation or functioning."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "throw a spanner in the works"
        },
        {
          "word": "put a spanner in the works"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "wrench in the works"
        },
        {
          "word": "monkey wrench in the works"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spanner in the works"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spanners in the works",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "spanners in the works"
      },
      "expansion": "spanner in the works (plural spanners in the works)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "throw a spanner in the works"
    },
    {
      "word": "put a spanner in the works"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              50,
              70
            ]
          ],
          "text": "The kids' involvement was unfortunately more of a spanner in the works than a helpful contribution toward Daddy's progress on the task, but he gamely pretended to be thankful anyway.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that disrupts smooth operation or functioning."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly UK) Something that disrupts smooth operation or functioning."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "wrench in the works"
        },
        {
          "word": "monkey wrench in the works"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spanner in the works"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-10-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-10-01 using wiktextract (c8bd62c and a979ada). 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.

"spanner in the works" meaning in English

Noun

Inflected forms