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Devil is in the details

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The details of a plan or work are where problems most often arise; small particulars can undermine even the grandest vision.

Detailed Definition
Possibly a transformation of "God is in the details," this idiom acknowledges that precision and attention to the small determine success or failure of the whole. In poetry, it captures the discipline of craft—the understanding that a single wrong word can destroy a poem just as a single faulty clause can sink a contract. Poets invoke it to celebrate the labor of revision, the ethics of careful observation, and the danger of abstraction unchecked by particular fact. It appears in meditations on writing, craft essays in verse, and poems about the dangerous gap between visionary intention and flawed execution, reminding readers that excellence is assembled detail by painstaking detail.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about the craft of poetry might use the devil is in the details to honor the labor of revision — the understanding that a single wrong word can destroy what a hundred right ones have built; In a political poem about a flawed treaty or legislation, the devil is in the details names the place where the high-minded language of principle meets the small print that determines what actually happens; The phrase suits poems about architecture, engineering, or any discipline where the distance between vision and execution is measured in the precision of the particular; A poem about cooking — in the tradition of domestic verse — might describe the devil in the details of a recipe as the small adjustments that separate a competent dish from a memorable one; In a poem about love's maintenance, the devil is in the details: not the grand gestures but the small daily attentions, the specific habits of care, whose absence or presence determines everything; The phrase works reflexively in a poem about writing itself, where the speaker acknowledges that the poem's success or failure will be determined not by its conception but by the details — the line break, the word choice, the comma that changes everything
Additional Notes
This idiom warns that grand designs fail through neglected particulars. In poetry, it can be used in craft discussions as well as subject matter: metre, diction, and image choices matter. The phrase suits poems about contracts, architecture, love, ritual, or bureaucracy. It pairs well with fine print, seams, stitches, footnotes, cracks, and hidden traps.
Also Known As
God is in the details Hidden in the details
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