"trim one's sails" meaning in English

See trim one's sails in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: trims one's sails [present, singular, third-person], trimming one's sails [participle, present], trimmed one's sails [participle, past], trimmed one's sails [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} trim one's sails (third-person singular simple present trims one's sails, present participle trimming one's sails, simple past and past participle trimmed one's sails)
  1. (nautical) To adjust a ship's sails to make the best of wind conditions. Categories (topical): Nautical Synonyms: shorten sail Translations (adjust a ship's sails): assettare la velatura (Italian)
    Sense id: en-trim_one's_sails-en-verb-u30WBcZv Topics: nautical, transport Disambiguation of "adjust a ship's sails": 91 9
  2. (figurative, by extension) To adapt to changing circumstances, especially if it involves scaling back one's ambitions; to make cutbacks. Tags: broadly, figuratively Synonyms: trim one's sails to the wind Translations (to make cutbacks): tehdä leikkauksia (Finnish), réduire la voilure (French), agire secondo il vento che tira (Italian)
    Sense id: en-trim_one's_sails-en-verb-731kQRA1 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 26 74 Disambiguation of 'to make cutbacks': 10 90

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for trim one's sails meaning in English (2.5kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "trims one's sails",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "trimming one's sails",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "trimmed one's sails",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "trimmed one's sails",
      "tags": [
        "past"
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
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      "expansion": "trim one's sails (third-person singular simple present trims one's sails, present participle trimming one's sails, simple past and past participle trimmed one's sails)",
      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Nautical",
          "orig": "en:Nautical",
          "parents": [
            "Transport",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To adjust a ship's sails to make the best of wind conditions."
      ],
      "id": "en-trim_one's_sails-en-verb-u30WBcZv",
      "links": [
        [
          "nautical",
          "nautical"
        ],
        [
          "adjust",
          "adjust"
        ],
        [
          "ship",
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        ],
        [
          "sail",
          "sail"
        ],
        [
          "make the best of",
          "make the best of"
        ],
        [
          "wind",
          "wind"
        ],
        [
          "condition",
          "condition"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(nautical) To adjust a ship's sails to make the best of wind conditions."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "shorten sail"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "nautical",
        "transport"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "91 9",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "adjust a ship's sails",
          "word": "assettare la velatura"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To adapt to changing circumstances, especially if it involves scaling back one's ambitions; to make cutbacks."
      ],
      "id": "en-trim_one's_sails-en-verb-731kQRA1",
      "links": [
        [
          "adapt",
          "adapt"
        ],
        [
          "changing",
          "changing"
        ],
        [
          "circumstance",
          "circumstance"
        ],
        [
          "scaling back",
          "scale back"
        ],
        [
          "ambition",
          "ambition"
        ],
        [
          "cutback",
          "cutback"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative, by extension) To adapt to changing circumstances, especially if it involves scaling back one's ambitions; to make cutbacks."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "44 56",
          "word": "trim one's sails to the wind"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "figuratively"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "10 90",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to make cutbacks",
          "word": "tehdä leikkauksia"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "10 90",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to make cutbacks",
          "word": "réduire la voilure"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "10 90",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "to make cutbacks",
          "word": "agire secondo il vento che tira"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "trim one's sails"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "trims one's sails",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "trimming one's sails",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "trimmed one's sails",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "trimmed one's sails",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "trim one's sails (third-person singular simple present trims one's sails, present participle trimming one's sails, simple past and past participle trimmed one's sails)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "en:Nautical"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To adjust a ship's sails to make the best of wind conditions."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "nautical",
          "nautical"
        ],
        [
          "adjust",
          "adjust"
        ],
        [
          "ship",
          "ship"
        ],
        [
          "sail",
          "sail"
        ],
        [
          "make the best of",
          "make the best of"
        ],
        [
          "wind",
          "wind"
        ],
        [
          "condition",
          "condition"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(nautical) To adjust a ship's sails to make the best of wind conditions."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "shorten sail"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "nautical",
        "transport"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "To adapt to changing circumstances, especially if it involves scaling back one's ambitions; to make cutbacks."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "adapt",
          "adapt"
        ],
        [
          "changing",
          "changing"
        ],
        [
          "circumstance",
          "circumstance"
        ],
        [
          "scaling back",
          "scale back"
        ],
        [
          "ambition",
          "ambition"
        ],
        [
          "cutback",
          "cutback"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative, by extension) To adapt to changing circumstances, especially if it involves scaling back one's ambitions; to make cutbacks."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "trim one's sails to the wind"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "adjust a ship's sails",
      "word": "assettare la velatura"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to make cutbacks",
      "word": "tehdä leikkauksia"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to make cutbacks",
      "word": "réduire la voilure"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "to make cutbacks",
      "word": "agire secondo il vento che tira"
    }
  ],
  "word": "trim one's sails"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 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.