See too many balls in the air in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for too many balls in the air meaning in English (4.0kB)
{
"etymology_text": "An allusion to the situation of juggler who is attempting to juggle an excessive number of objects.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "p",
"head": "too many balls in the air"
},
"expansion": "too many balls in the air pl (plural only)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English pluralia tantum",
"parents": [
"Pluralia tantum",
"Nouns",
"Lemmas"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1989 July 27, Ian Gilmour, \"Holding all the strings\" (review of Macmillan, Vol. II by Alistair Horne), London Review of Books (UK) (retrieved 25 May 2014)",
"text": "[Prime Minister] Harold Macmillan frequently complained of having to keep too many balls in the air at the same time."
},
{
"ref": "1991 June 23, Carole Gould, “Mutual Funds: Drawbacks to Asset Allocation”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-05-25",
"text": "Some analysts say the mediocre performance of the asset-allocation funds may result from the massive amounts of data their managers must sort through: central bank policies, business cycles, stock values, inflation rates and sector performance in various markets, both here and abroad. They may simply have \"too many balls in the air at one time,\" said Anthony J. Ogorek.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2004 October 7, Anthony B. Robinson, “Bush message is a broken record”, in Seattle Post-Intelligencer, retrieved 2014-05-25",
"text": "If you get too many balls in the air, or are changing your focus too often, as one might argue President Clinton did in his first term, people have a hard time staying with you, much less following your leadership.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2005 May 18, Liz Ryan, “No Sale? Don't Blame Your Boss”, in Businessweek, retrieved 2014-05-25",
"text": "\"He has too many balls in the air. He can't stay on top of initiatives from people who report to him. He's a terrible manager.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully."
],
"id": "en-too_many_balls_in_the_air-en-noun-clWCbYvC",
"links": [
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"responsibilities",
"responsibility"
],
[
"detail",
"detail"
],
[
"cope with",
"cope with"
],
[
"manage",
"manage"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "on one's plate"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"plural",
"plural-only"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"word": "for mange bolde i luften"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"word": "Die Augen waren größer als der Mund"
},
{
"code": "it",
"english": "literally: too much meat on the fire",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "troppa carne sul fuoco"
},
{
"code": "lt",
"english": "literally: eyes are greater than stomach",
"lang": "Lithuanian",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"word": "akys didesnės už pilvą"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"word": "for mange baller i luften"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-too many balls in the air.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/73/En-au-too_many_balls_in_the_air.ogg/En-au-too_many_balls_in_the_air.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/En-au-too_many_balls_in_the_air.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "too many balls in the air"
}
{
"etymology_text": "An allusion to the situation of juggler who is attempting to juggle an excessive number of objects.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "p",
"head": "too many balls in the air"
},
"expansion": "too many balls in the air pl (plural only)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "on one's plate"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English pluralia tantum",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1989 July 27, Ian Gilmour, \"Holding all the strings\" (review of Macmillan, Vol. II by Alistair Horne), London Review of Books (UK) (retrieved 25 May 2014)",
"text": "[Prime Minister] Harold Macmillan frequently complained of having to keep too many balls in the air at the same time."
},
{
"ref": "1991 June 23, Carole Gould, “Mutual Funds: Drawbacks to Asset Allocation”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-05-25",
"text": "Some analysts say the mediocre performance of the asset-allocation funds may result from the massive amounts of data their managers must sort through: central bank policies, business cycles, stock values, inflation rates and sector performance in various markets, both here and abroad. They may simply have \"too many balls in the air at one time,\" said Anthony J. Ogorek.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2004 October 7, Anthony B. Robinson, “Bush message is a broken record”, in Seattle Post-Intelligencer, retrieved 2014-05-25",
"text": "If you get too many balls in the air, or are changing your focus too often, as one might argue President Clinton did in his first term, people have a hard time staying with you, much less following your leadership.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2005 May 18, Liz Ryan, “No Sale? Don't Blame Your Boss”, in Businessweek, retrieved 2014-05-25",
"text": "\"He has too many balls in the air. He can't stay on top of initiatives from people who report to him. He's a terrible manager.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully."
],
"links": [
[
"task",
"task"
],
[
"responsibilities",
"responsibility"
],
[
"detail",
"detail"
],
[
"cope with",
"cope with"
],
[
"manage",
"manage"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"plural",
"plural-only"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-too many balls in the air.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/73/En-au-too_many_balls_in_the_air.ogg/En-au-too_many_balls_in_the_air.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/En-au-too_many_balls_in_the_air.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"word": "for mange bolde i luften"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"word": "Die Augen waren größer als der Mund"
},
{
"code": "it",
"english": "literally: too much meat on the fire",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "troppa carne sul fuoco"
},
{
"code": "lt",
"english": "literally: eyes are greater than stomach",
"lang": "Lithuanian",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"word": "akys didesnės už pilvą"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully",
"word": "for mange baller i luften"
}
],
"word": "too many balls in the air"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.
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