"strap on a pair" meaning in English

See strap on a pair in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-strap on a pair.ogg [Australia] Forms: straps on a pair [present, singular, third-person], strapping on a pair [participle, present], strapped on a pair [participle, past], strapped on a pair [past]
Etymology: Abbreviation of "strap on a pair of testicles". Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} strap on a pair (third-person singular simple present straps on a pair, present participle strapping on a pair, simple past and past participle strapped on a pair)
  1. (chiefly US, colloquial, idiomatic, somewhat vulgar) To be brave; to show some courage, especially in a situation where one has so far failed to do so. Tags: US, colloquial, idiomatic, vulgar Synonyms: get a pair, grow a pair, man up, ruck up Related terms: have a pair
    Sense id: en-strap_on_a_pair-en-verb-3PcH7F5P Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for strap on a pair meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Abbreviation of \"strap on a pair of testicles\".",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "straps on a pair",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "strapping on a pair",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "strapped on a pair",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "strapped on a pair",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "strap on a pair (third-person singular simple present straps on a pair, present participle strapping on a pair, simple past and past participle strapped on a pair)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2002 July 17, \"Parenting Forum,\" cleveland.com (Cleveland Plain Dealer) (retrieved 29 Oct 2008)",
          "text": "The moral of the story is strap on a pair and be a man."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 February 1, “The power of words”, in Automotive Industries, retrieved 2008-10-29",
          "text": "Somebody clearly needed to \"strap on a pair\" and say what needed to be said. Forget the flowery words and sensitivity training.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be brave; to show some courage, especially in a situation where one has so far failed to do so."
      ],
      "id": "en-strap_on_a_pair-en-verb-3PcH7F5P",
      "links": [
        [
          "brave",
          "brave"
        ],
        [
          "courage",
          "courage"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US, colloquial, idiomatic, somewhat vulgar) To be brave; to show some courage, especially in a situation where one has so far failed to do so."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "have a pair"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "get a pair"
        },
        {
          "word": "grow a pair"
        },
        {
          "word": "man up"
        },
        {
          "word": "ruck up"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-strap on a pair.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c7/En-au-strap_on_a_pair.ogg/En-au-strap_on_a_pair.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/En-au-strap_on_a_pair.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "strap on a pair"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Abbreviation of \"strap on a pair of testicles\".",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "straps on a pair",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "strapping on a pair",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "strapped on a pair",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "strapped on a pair",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "strap on a pair (third-person singular simple present straps on a pair, present participle strapping on a pair, simple past and past participle strapped on a pair)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "have a pair"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "English vulgarities"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2002 July 17, \"Parenting Forum,\" cleveland.com (Cleveland Plain Dealer) (retrieved 29 Oct 2008)",
          "text": "The moral of the story is strap on a pair and be a man."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 February 1, “The power of words”, in Automotive Industries, retrieved 2008-10-29",
          "text": "Somebody clearly needed to \"strap on a pair\" and say what needed to be said. Forget the flowery words and sensitivity training.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be brave; to show some courage, especially in a situation where one has so far failed to do so."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "brave",
          "brave"
        ],
        [
          "courage",
          "courage"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US, colloquial, idiomatic, somewhat vulgar) To be brave; to show some courage, especially in a situation where one has so far failed to do so."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-strap on a pair.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c7/En-au-strap_on_a_pair.ogg/En-au-strap_on_a_pair.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/En-au-strap_on_a_pair.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "get a pair"
    },
    {
      "word": "grow a pair"
    },
    {
      "word": "man up"
    },
    {
      "word": "ruck up"
    }
  ],
  "word": "strap on a pair"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-22 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (fc4f0c7 and c937495). 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.