See take the wind out of someone's sails in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for take the wind out of someone's sails meaning in English (4.5kB)
{
"etymology_text": "Referring to the idea of a ship that intercepts the wind of another, causing it to slow or stop.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "takes the wind out of someone's sails",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "taking the wind out of someone's sails",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "took the wind out of someone's sails",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "taken the wind out of someone's sails",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "take<,,took,taken> the wind out of someone's sails"
},
"expansion": "take the wind out of someone's sails (third-person singular simple present takes the wind out of someone's sails, present participle taking the wind out of someone's sails, simple past took the wind out of someone's sails, past participle taken the wind out of someone's sails)",
"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"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "c. 1860, Louisa May Alcott, Aunt Kipp",
"text": "\"I tell you Van Bahr Lamb is a fool.\" […]\nBut Polly […] completely took the wind out of her sails, by coolly remarking,— \"I like fools.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1922, Frances Hodgson Burnett, chapter 31, in The Head of the House of Coombe",
"text": "Could he have some elderly idea of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did. Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1990 May 27, Serge Schmemann, “German rightist quits after party suffers setback”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-07-17",
"text": "[T]he Republicans […] have been repeatedly battered in the polls since German unification became a mainstream German concern and took the wind out of their sails.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011 April 14, “Quotes of the Day”, in Time",
"text": "\"It took the wind out of our sails,\" he says. \"I had no Plan B. I was a wreck.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023, “Let the Sun Come In”, in Relentless, performed by The Pretenders",
"text": "A bunch of myths, a bunch of tales / To take the wind out of our sails / They even say that we must die / I don't believe it, that's a lie",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To discourage someone greatly; to cause someone to lose hope or the will to continue; to thwart or minimize someone's ambitions."
],
"id": "en-take_the_wind_out_of_someone's_sails-en-verb--mLLPZ-t",
"links": [
[
"discourage",
"discourage"
],
[
"hope",
"hope"
],
[
"will",
"will"
],
[
"continue",
"continue"
],
[
"thwart",
"thwart"
],
[
"minimize",
"minimize"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To discourage someone greatly; to cause someone to lose hope or the will to continue; to thwart or minimize someone's ambitions."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "cut the ground from under someone's feet"
},
{
"word": "take the piss"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "deflate"
},
{
"word": "flummox"
},
{
"word": "stultify"
},
{
"word": "stymie"
},
{
"word": "thwart"
},
{
"word": "knock the wind out of someone's sails"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "iemand de wind uit de zeilen nemen"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "lannistaa"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "jemandem den Wind aus den Segeln nehmen"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "remare contro"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "scoraggiare"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "disilludere"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "mettere in ginocchio"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "przygaszać"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"tags": [
"perfective"
],
"word": "przygasić"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-take the wind out of someone's sails.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/62/En-au-take_the_wind_out_of_someone%27s_sails.ogg/En-au-take_the_wind_out_of_someone%27s_sails.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/En-au-take_the_wind_out_of_someone%27s_sails.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "take the wind out of someone's sails"
}
{
"etymology_text": "Referring to the idea of a ship that intercepts the wind of another, causing it to slow or stop.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "takes the wind out of someone's sails",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "taking the wind out of someone's sails",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "took the wind out of someone's sails",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "taken the wind out of someone's sails",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "take<,,took,taken> the wind out of someone's sails"
},
"expansion": "take the wind out of someone's sails (third-person singular simple present takes the wind out of someone's sails, present participle taking the wind out of someone's sails, simple past took the wind out of someone's sails, past participle taken the wind out of someone's sails)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "cut the ground from under someone's feet"
},
{
"word": "take the piss"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "c. 1860, Louisa May Alcott, Aunt Kipp",
"text": "\"I tell you Van Bahr Lamb is a fool.\" […]\nBut Polly […] completely took the wind out of her sails, by coolly remarking,— \"I like fools.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1922, Frances Hodgson Burnett, chapter 31, in The Head of the House of Coombe",
"text": "Could he have some elderly idea of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did. Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1990 May 27, Serge Schmemann, “German rightist quits after party suffers setback”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-07-17",
"text": "[T]he Republicans […] have been repeatedly battered in the polls since German unification became a mainstream German concern and took the wind out of their sails.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011 April 14, “Quotes of the Day”, in Time",
"text": "\"It took the wind out of our sails,\" he says. \"I had no Plan B. I was a wreck.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023, “Let the Sun Come In”, in Relentless, performed by The Pretenders",
"text": "A bunch of myths, a bunch of tales / To take the wind out of our sails / They even say that we must die / I don't believe it, that's a lie",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To discourage someone greatly; to cause someone to lose hope or the will to continue; to thwart or minimize someone's ambitions."
],
"links": [
[
"discourage",
"discourage"
],
[
"hope",
"hope"
],
[
"will",
"will"
],
[
"continue",
"continue"
],
[
"thwart",
"thwart"
],
[
"minimize",
"minimize"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To discourage someone greatly; to cause someone to lose hope or the will to continue; to thwart or minimize someone's ambitions."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-take the wind out of someone's sails.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/62/En-au-take_the_wind_out_of_someone%27s_sails.ogg/En-au-take_the_wind_out_of_someone%27s_sails.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/En-au-take_the_wind_out_of_someone%27s_sails.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "deflate"
},
{
"word": "flummox"
},
{
"word": "stultify"
},
{
"word": "stymie"
},
{
"word": "thwart"
},
{
"word": "knock the wind out of someone's sails"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "iemand de wind uit de zeilen nemen"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "lannistaa"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "jemandem den Wind aus den Segeln nehmen"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "remare contro"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "scoraggiare"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "disilludere"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"word": "mettere in ginocchio"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "przygaszać"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to discourage someone",
"tags": [
"perfective"
],
"word": "przygasić"
}
],
"word": "take the wind out of someone's sails"
}
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.