# punching above our weight (outsized)

*Ordinarily means:* having more influence or success than one's size would suggest

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.

- Computed level: L19 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: published  ·  Domain: agency

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [collective self](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-collective-self.shared), [read](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-read.information), [reach](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-reach.action), [power](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-power.over), [others](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-others.distinct-entities), [wide](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wide.spatial), [size](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-size.measurement), [alone](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-alone.state), [allow](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-allow.permission), [difference](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-difference.relation), [come](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-come.arrive), [act](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-act.deed), [self-model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-self-model.reflexive), [narrative](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-narrative.self-story)

**Through:** 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
- British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd is widely credited with saying in 1993 that Britain 'punches above its weight' in world affairs. *(politics)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-punching-above-our-weight.outsized*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-punching-above-our-weight.outsized.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*