spray and pray in English

Forms: sprays and prays [present, singular, third-person], spraying and praying [participle, present], sprayed and prayed [participle, past], sprayed and prayed [past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Head templates: {{en-verb|spray<> and pray<>}} spray and pray (third-person singular simple present sprays and prays, present participle spraying and praying, simple past and past participle sprayed and prayed)

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sprays and prays",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spraying and praying",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sprayed and prayed",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sprayed and prayed",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "spray<> and pray<>"
      },
      "expansion": "spray and pray (third-person singular simple present sprays and prays, present participle spraying and praying, simple past and past participle sprayed and prayed)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English coordinated pairs",
          "parents": [
            "Coordinated pairs",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To dispense anything (such as bullets or advertising) in an uncoordinated manner, hoping to reach the desired target through luck."
      ],
      "id": "en-spray_and_pray-en-verb-4i4wbsKs",
      "links": [
        [
          "dispense",
          "dispense"
        ],
        [
          "bullet",
          "bullet"
        ],
        [
          "advertising",
          "advertising"
        ],
        [
          "uncoordinated",
          "uncoordinated"
        ],
        [
          "target",
          "target"
        ],
        [
          "luck",
          "luck"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) To dispense anything (such as bullets or advertising) in an uncoordinated manner, hoping to reach the desired target through luck."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "fire and forget"
        },
        {
          "word": "hit and hope"
        },
        {
          "word": "set-and-forget"
        },
        {
          "word": "shotgun approach"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spray and pray"
}

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

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sprays and prays",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spraying and praying",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sprayed and prayed",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sprayed and prayed",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "spray<> and pray<>"
      },
      "expansion": "spray and pray (third-person singular simple present sprays and prays, present participle spraying and praying, simple past and past participle sprayed and prayed)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "fire and forget"
    },
    {
      "word": "hit and hope"
    },
    {
      "word": "set-and-forget"
    },
    {
      "word": "shotgun approach"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English coordinated pairs",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English rhyming phrases",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To dispense anything (such as bullets or advertising) in an uncoordinated manner, hoping to reach the desired target through luck."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "dispense",
          "dispense"
        ],
        [
          "bullet",
          "bullet"
        ],
        [
          "advertising",
          "advertising"
        ],
        [
          "uncoordinated",
          "uncoordinated"
        ],
        [
          "target",
          "target"
        ],
        [
          "luck",
          "luck"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) To dispense anything (such as bullets or advertising) in an uncoordinated manner, hoping to reach the desired target through luck."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spray and pray"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (9a96ef4 and 4ed51a5). 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.

"spray and pray" meaning in English

Verb