Word.ws English Dictionary

half the battle

half the battle phrase: a large part of what it takes to accomplish something.

Phrase

half the battle

  1. A large part of what it takes to accomplish something.
    • Knowing is half the battle.

Origin of half the battle

A figure of speech that goes back centuries. Although the collocation knowing is half the battle long predates the G.I. Joe cartoon series, its pop-culture ubiquity in the 21st century is explained by that popularization.

Questions about half the battle

What does half the battle mean?
Half the battle means a large part of what it takes to accomplish something.
What part of speech is half the battle?
Half the battle is a phrase.

Words near half the battle in the dictionary

  1. half staffs
  2. half step
  3. half steps
  4. half term
  5. half terms
  6. half the battle
  7. half the story
  8. half time
  9. half times
  10. half title
  11. half titles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: half the battle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “half the battle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/half_the_battle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.