"spread oneself thin" meaning in English

See spread oneself thin in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: spreads oneself thin [present, singular, third-person], spreading oneself thin [participle, present], spread oneself thin [participle, past], spread oneself thin [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|spread<,,spread> oneself thin}} spread oneself thin (third-person singular simple present spreads oneself thin, present participle spreading oneself thin, simple past and past participle spread oneself thin)
  1. To commit oneself to too many projects, so that there is little chance of completing them all satisfactorily. Synonyms: spread oneself too thin Related terms: have one's fingers in many pies, jack of all trades, wear too many hats Translations (to commit oneself to too many projects): rasittaa itseään liikaa (Finnish), se disperser (French), partir dans tous les sens (French), s’éparpiller (French), but see rozmieniać się na drobne [imperfective] (Polish), rozmienić się na drobne [perfective] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-spread_oneself_thin-en-verb-UlgpasF5 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for spread oneself thin meaning in English (2.1kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spreads oneself thin",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spreading oneself thin",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spread oneself thin",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spread oneself thin",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "spread<,,spread> oneself thin"
      },
      "expansion": "spread oneself thin (third-person singular simple present spreads oneself thin, present participle spreading oneself thin, simple past and past participle spread oneself thin)",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To commit oneself to too many projects, so that there is little chance of completing them all satisfactorily."
      ],
      "id": "en-spread_oneself_thin-en-verb-UlgpasF5",
      "links": [
        [
          "commit",
          "commit"
        ],
        [
          "project",
          "project"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "have one's fingers in many pies"
        },
        {
          "word": "jack of all trades"
        },
        {
          "word": "wear too many hats"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "spread oneself too thin"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
          "word": "rasittaa itseään liikaa"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
          "word": "se disperser"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
          "word": "partir dans tous les sens"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
          "word": "s’éparpiller"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "note": "no equivalent term in Polish",
          "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "but see rozmieniać się na drobne"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
          "tags": [
            "perfective"
          ],
          "word": "rozmienić się na drobne"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spread oneself thin"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spreads oneself thin",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spreading oneself thin",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spread oneself thin",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spread oneself thin",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "spread<,,spread> oneself thin"
      },
      "expansion": "spread oneself thin (third-person singular simple present spreads oneself thin, present participle spreading oneself thin, simple past and past participle spread oneself thin)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "have one's fingers in many pies"
    },
    {
      "word": "jack of all trades"
    },
    {
      "word": "wear too many hats"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To commit oneself to too many projects, so that there is little chance of completing them all satisfactorily."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "commit",
          "commit"
        ],
        [
          "project",
          "project"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "spread oneself too thin"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
      "word": "rasittaa itseään liikaa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
      "word": "se disperser"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
      "word": "partir dans tous les sens"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
      "word": "s’éparpiller"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "note": "no equivalent term in Polish",
      "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "but see rozmieniać się na drobne"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "to commit oneself to too many projects",
      "tags": [
        "perfective"
      ],
      "word": "rozmienić się na drobne"
    }
  ],
  "word": "spread oneself thin"
}

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.