"way to run a railroad" meaning in English

See way to run a railroad in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: From the demanding nature of running a railroad before telecommunications. Head templates: {{en-noun|?}} way to run a railroad
  1. (US) Method of managing a complex operation. Tags: US Related terms: couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery

Download JSON data for way to run a railroad meaning in English (1.5kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the demanding nature of running a railroad before telecommunications.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "way to run a railroad",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English negative polarity items",
          "parents": [
            "Negative polarity items",
            "Terms by semantic function"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "This is no way to run a railroad."
        },
        {
          "text": "This is a hell of a way to run a railroad."
        },
        {
          "text": "Is this any way to run a railroad?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Method of managing a complex operation."
      ],
      "id": "en-way_to_run_a_railroad-en-noun-DKkhLx2L",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US) Method of managing a complex operation."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "way to run a railroad"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the demanding nature of running a railroad before telecommunications.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "way to run a railroad",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English negative polarity items",
        "English nouns",
        "English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "This is no way to run a railroad."
        },
        {
          "text": "This is a hell of a way to run a railroad."
        },
        {
          "text": "Is this any way to run a railroad?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Method of managing a complex operation."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US) Method of managing a complex operation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "way to run a railroad"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 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.