{
  "id": "in-the-weeds.abstraction",
  "term": "in the weeds",
  "sense": "abstraction",
  "pos": "adjective",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "everyday language",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "Being so deep in the parts of a thing that the boundary of the whole can no longer be seen, and its state cannot be told from inside.",
  "folk_gloss": "Deep in the details and unable to see the bigger picture.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "boundary.limit",
      "state.condition",
      "inside.spatial",
      "whole.complete",
      "part.relation",
      "abstraction.process"
    ],
    "interaction": "in-the-weeds.abstraction",
    "novel_properties": [
      "emergence.novel_properties"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "in the weeds"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — levels and abstraction"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-in-the-weeds.abstraction"
}