See throw a bone to in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for throw a bone to meaning in English (3.2kB)
{
"etymology_text": "An allusion to the act of throwing a bone as food to a hungry dog.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "throws a bone to",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "throwing a bone to",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "threw a bone to",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "thrown a bone to",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "throw<,,threw,thrown> a bone to"
},
"expansion": "throw a bone to (third-person singular simple present throws a bone to, present participle throwing a bone to, simple past threw a bone to, past participle thrown a bone to)",
"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": "1944 January 14, “ILWU Votes for FR Plan”, in Berkeley Daily Gazette, retrieved 2011-07-11, page 1",
"text": "The union […] \"regretted that the President thought it necessary to throw a bone to the anti-labor bloc\" by saying the act would prevent strikes.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1965 December 10, “U.S. Business: New Dam for the Dollar Drain”, in Time, archived from the original on 2012-01-05",
"text": "Throwing a bone to the banks, it will allow a 4% increase in overseas loans next year.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1991 June 18, “Cowboys reward Wright with early starting position”, in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, retrieved 2011-07-11, page S1",
"text": "The Dallas Cowboys yesterday gave a starting job to Alexander Wright, in effect throwing him a bone.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1997, Mike Myers, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, spoken by Dr. Evil (Mike Myers)",
"text": "Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here. What do we have?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006 June 16, Joseph Berger, “Acknowledging the Gay Part of Gay Marriage”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
"text": "And he did it on the day the Senate threw a bone to President Bush's evangelical base by voting on a Constitutional amendment declaring that only a union of a man and a woman constitutes marriage.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To provide support or assistance to, especially in one particular way or to a limited extent; to make a concession to."
],
"id": "en-throw_a_bone_to-en-verb-x3S2Rhqx",
"links": [
[
"support",
"support"
],
[
"assistance",
"assistance"
],
[
"particular",
"particular"
],
[
"limited",
"limited"
],
[
"concession",
"concession"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To provide support or assistance to, especially in one particular way or to a limited extent; to make a concession to."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "throw someone a bone"
},
{
"word": "toss a bone to"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-throw a bone to.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/50/En-au-throw_a_bone_to.ogg/En-au-throw_a_bone_to.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/En-au-throw_a_bone_to.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "throw a bone to"
}
{
"etymology_text": "An allusion to the act of throwing a bone as food to a hungry dog.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "throws a bone to",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "throwing a bone to",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "threw a bone to",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "thrown a bone to",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "throw<,,threw,thrown> a bone to"
},
"expansion": "throw a bone to (third-person singular simple present throws a bone to, present participle throwing a bone to, simple past threw a bone to, past participle thrown a bone to)",
"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 terms with quotations",
"English verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1944 January 14, “ILWU Votes for FR Plan”, in Berkeley Daily Gazette, retrieved 2011-07-11, page 1",
"text": "The union […] \"regretted that the President thought it necessary to throw a bone to the anti-labor bloc\" by saying the act would prevent strikes.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1965 December 10, “U.S. Business: New Dam for the Dollar Drain”, in Time, archived from the original on 2012-01-05",
"text": "Throwing a bone to the banks, it will allow a 4% increase in overseas loans next year.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1991 June 18, “Cowboys reward Wright with early starting position”, in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, retrieved 2011-07-11, page S1",
"text": "The Dallas Cowboys yesterday gave a starting job to Alexander Wright, in effect throwing him a bone.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1997, Mike Myers, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, spoken by Dr. Evil (Mike Myers)",
"text": "Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here. What do we have?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006 June 16, Joseph Berger, “Acknowledging the Gay Part of Gay Marriage”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
"text": "And he did it on the day the Senate threw a bone to President Bush's evangelical base by voting on a Constitutional amendment declaring that only a union of a man and a woman constitutes marriage.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To provide support or assistance to, especially in one particular way or to a limited extent; to make a concession to."
],
"links": [
[
"support",
"support"
],
[
"assistance",
"assistance"
],
[
"particular",
"particular"
],
[
"limited",
"limited"
],
[
"concession",
"concession"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To provide support or assistance to, especially in one particular way or to a limited extent; to make a concession to."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-throw a bone to.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/50/En-au-throw_a_bone_to.ogg/En-au-throw_a_bone_to.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/En-au-throw_a_bone_to.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "throw someone a bone"
},
{
"word": "toss a bone to"
}
],
"word": "throw a bone to"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.