{
  "id": "punching-above-our-weight.outsized",
  "term": "punching above our weight",
  "sense": "outsized",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 19,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A collective self reading its reach over others as wider than its size alone would allow, the difference read as coming from how it acts.",
  "folk_gloss": "having more influence or success than one's size would suggest",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "read.information",
      "reach.action",
      "power.over",
      "others.distinct-entities",
      "wide.spatial",
      "size.measurement",
      "alone.state",
      "allow.permission",
      "difference.relation",
      "come.arrive",
      "act.deed",
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "narrative.self-story"
    ],
    "interaction": "The self model measures its reach against a baseline set by size and reads the surplus as its own doing; the phrase keeps both the smallness and the reach in one story, so the surplus is read as skill that must be kept up.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "reach read against size, not against others",
      "a surplus credited to conduct",
      "smallness kept inside a claim of reach"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd is widely credited with saying in 1993 that Britain 'punches above its weight' in world affairs.",
      "domain": "politics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "paper-tiger.untested",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "a paper tiger is read by others as wider than it is; this is the self reading its reach as wider than its size"
    },
    {
      "id": "worlds-largest-democracy.superlative",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "that sizes the self by rank in a kind; this by reach against size"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "punch above its weight",
    "punch above our weight",
    "punch above their weight",
    "punched above its weight",
    "punches above its weight",
    "punching above its weight",
    "punching above our weight",
    "punching above their weight"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-punching-above-our-weight.outsized"
}