"tail wagging the dog" meaning in English

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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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          "source": "w"
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      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "wag the dog"
        }
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1987 May 9, Gordon Gottlieb, Richard Burns, Sue Hyde, “Homocrats and Liberationists: Burns and Hyde Consider the Community's Institutions”, in Gay Community News, page 8",
          "text": "This is classic for all non-profit agencies: the tail wags the dog. If you have a foundation willing to fund a particular kind of program, then an organization will write that kind of grant. Suddenly, you're doing a program to where the bucks are. Maybe that's not within the original mission of the mission.",
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      "glosses": [
        "A minor or secondary part of something controlling or dominating the whole or the main part."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A minor or secondary part of something controlling or dominating the whole or the main part."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "put the cart before the horse"
        }
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      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "häntä heiluttaa koiraa"
        }
      ]
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  "word": "tail wagging the dog"
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      "word": "wag the dog"
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      "examples": [
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          "ref": "1987 May 9, Gordon Gottlieb, Richard Burns, Sue Hyde, “Homocrats and Liberationists: Burns and Hyde Consider the Community's Institutions”, in Gay Community News, page 8",
          "text": "This is classic for all non-profit agencies: the tail wags the dog. If you have a foundation willing to fund a particular kind of program, then an organization will write that kind of grant. Suddenly, you're doing a program to where the bucks are. Maybe that's not within the original mission of the mission.",
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        "A minor or secondary part of something controlling or dominating the whole or the main part."
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        "(idiomatic) A minor or secondary part of something controlling or dominating the whole or the main part."
      ],
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      "word": "häntä heiluttaa koiraa"
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  "word": "tail wagging the dog"
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