"take the shadow for the substance" meaning in English

See take the shadow for the substance in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-take the shadow for the substance.ogg [Australia] Forms: takes the shadow for the substance [present, singular, third-person], taking the shadow for the substance [participle, present], took the shadow for the substance [past], taken the shadow for the substance [participle, past]
Etymology: Traditional, particularly in sermons; attested since 1818. Head templates: {{en-verb|take<,,took,taken> the shadow for the substance}} take the shadow for the substance (third-person singular simple present takes the shadow for the substance, present participle taking the shadow for the substance, simple past took the shadow for the substance, past participle taken the shadow for the substance)
  1. (idiomatic) To be easily deceived, credulous, superficial. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-take_the_shadow_for_the_substance-en-verb-TzJtHw04 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for take the shadow for the substance meaning in English (1.8kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Traditional, particularly in sermons; attested since 1818.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "takes the shadow for the substance",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taking the shadow for the substance",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "took the shadow for the substance",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taken the shadow for the substance",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "take<,,took,taken> the shadow for the substance"
      },
      "expansion": "take the shadow for the substance (third-person singular simple present takes the shadow for the substance, present participle taking the shadow for the substance, simple past took the shadow for the substance, past participle taken the shadow for the substance)",
      "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 be easily deceived, credulous, superficial."
      ],
      "id": "en-take_the_shadow_for_the_substance-en-verb-TzJtHw04",
      "links": [
        [
          "deceived",
          "deceived"
        ],
        [
          "credulous",
          "credulous"
        ],
        [
          "superficial",
          "superficial"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be easily deceived, credulous, superficial."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-take the shadow for the substance.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f7/En-au-take_the_shadow_for_the_substance.ogg/En-au-take_the_shadow_for_the_substance.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/En-au-take_the_shadow_for_the_substance.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "take the shadow for the substance"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Traditional, particularly in sermons; attested since 1818.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "takes the shadow for the substance",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taking the shadow for the substance",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "took the shadow for the substance",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taken the shadow for the substance",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "take<,,took,taken> the shadow for the substance"
      },
      "expansion": "take the shadow for the substance (third-person singular simple present takes the shadow for the substance, present participle taking the shadow for the substance, simple past took the shadow for the substance, past participle taken the shadow for the substance)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be easily deceived, credulous, superficial."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "deceived",
          "deceived"
        ],
        [
          "credulous",
          "credulous"
        ],
        [
          "superficial",
          "superficial"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be easily deceived, credulous, superficial."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-take the shadow for the substance.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f7/En-au-take_the_shadow_for_the_substance.ogg/En-au-take_the_shadow_for_the_substance.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/En-au-take_the_shadow_for_the_substance.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "take the shadow for the substance"
}

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.