"stand on the shoulders of" meaning in English

See stand on the shoulders of in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: stands on the shoulders of [present, singular, third-person], standing on the shoulders of [participle, present], stood on the shoulders of [participle, past], stood on the shoulders of [past]
Etymology: Clipping of stand on the shoulders of giants. Etymology templates: {{clipping|en|stand on the shoulders of giants}} Clipping of stand on the shoulders of giants Head templates: {{en-verb|stand<,,stood> on the shoulders of}} stand on the shoulders of (third-person singular simple present stands on the shoulders of, present participle standing on the shoulders of, simple past and past participle stood on the shoulders of)
  1. (idiomatic) To build on the previous works and gains of. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-stand_on_the_shoulders_of-en-verb-p~W2h5g6 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "stand on the shoulders of giants"
      },
      "expansion": "Clipping of stand on the shoulders of giants",
      "name": "clipping"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Clipping of stand on the shoulders of giants.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "stands on the shoulders of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "standing on the shoulders of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "stood on the shoulders of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "stood on the shoulders of",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "stand<,,stood> on the shoulders of"
      },
      "expansion": "stand on the shoulders of (third-person singular simple present stands on the shoulders of, present participle standing on the shoulders of, simple past and past participle stood on the shoulders of)",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To build on the previous works and gains of."
      ],
      "id": "en-stand_on_the_shoulders_of-en-verb-p~W2h5g6",
      "links": [
        [
          "build on",
          "build on"
        ],
        [
          "gain",
          "gain"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To build on the previous works and gains of."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "stand on the shoulders of"
}

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "stand on the shoulders of giants"
      },
      "expansion": "Clipping of stand on the shoulders of giants",
      "name": "clipping"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Clipping of stand on the shoulders of giants.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "stands on the shoulders of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "standing on the shoulders of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "stood on the shoulders of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "stood on the shoulders of",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "stand<,,stood> on the shoulders of"
      },
      "expansion": "stand on the shoulders of (third-person singular simple present stands on the shoulders of, present participle standing on the shoulders of, simple past and past participle stood on the shoulders of)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English clippings",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To build on the previous works and gains of."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "build on",
          "build on"
        ],
        [
          "gain",
          "gain"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To build on the previous works and gains of."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "stand on the shoulders of"
}

Download raw JSONL data for stand on the shoulders of meaning in English (1.4kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (ce0be54 and f2e72e5). 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.