"Heath Robinson" meaning in All languages combined

See Heath Robinson on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: Heath Robinsons [plural]
Etymology: In reference to the drawings by William Heath Robinson. Head templates: {{en-noun}} Heath Robinson (plural Heath Robinsons)
  1. (chiefly UK, attributive) Anything ingenious (and often complex) but absurdly impractical or even useless. Wikipedia link: W. Heath Robinson Tags: UK, attributive Related terms: Heath Robinsonesque, Heath Robinsonian, Rube Goldberg machine
    Sense id: en-Heath_Robinson-en-noun--ifr8Oqy Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "In reference to the drawings by William Heath Robinson.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Heath Robinsons",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Heath Robinson (plural Heath Robinsons)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1998, Samuel Lieu, Manichaeism in Central Asia and China, →ISBN, page 16:",
          "text": "Among the many Heath Robinson contraptions he devised were the Light Vessels (the Sun and the Moon) which would ferry the rescued Light-Particles back to their land of origin along the Milky Way.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Ivan M. Donaldson, The Truant from Medicine: A Memoir, →ISBN:",
          "text": "And that is how we came to mow our lake weed, although we eventually found it easier to tie two ropes, one to each side of the inner tube, and to pull the Heath Robinson contraption back and forwards across the water with Chris and I standing on opposite banks, each holding one of the lines.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Anything ingenious (and often complex) but absurdly impractical or even useless."
      ],
      "id": "en-Heath_Robinson-en-noun--ifr8Oqy",
      "links": [
        [
          "ingenious",
          "ingenious"
        ],
        [
          "complex",
          "complex"
        ],
        [
          "impractical",
          "impractical"
        ],
        [
          "useless",
          "useless"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly UK, attributive) Anything ingenious (and often complex) but absurdly impractical or even useless."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "Heath Robinsonesque"
        },
        {
          "word": "Heath Robinsonian"
        },
        {
          "word": "Rube Goldberg machine"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "attributive"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "W. Heath Robinson"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "Heath Robinson"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "In reference to the drawings by William Heath Robinson.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Heath Robinsons",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Heath Robinson (plural Heath Robinsons)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "Heath Robinsonesque"
    },
    {
      "word": "Heath Robinsonian"
    },
    {
      "word": "Rube Goldberg machine"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English eponyms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1998, Samuel Lieu, Manichaeism in Central Asia and China, →ISBN, page 16:",
          "text": "Among the many Heath Robinson contraptions he devised were the Light Vessels (the Sun and the Moon) which would ferry the rescued Light-Particles back to their land of origin along the Milky Way.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Ivan M. Donaldson, The Truant from Medicine: A Memoir, →ISBN:",
          "text": "And that is how we came to mow our lake weed, although we eventually found it easier to tie two ropes, one to each side of the inner tube, and to pull the Heath Robinson contraption back and forwards across the water with Chris and I standing on opposite banks, each holding one of the lines.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Anything ingenious (and often complex) but absurdly impractical or even useless."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "ingenious",
          "ingenious"
        ],
        [
          "complex",
          "complex"
        ],
        [
          "impractical",
          "impractical"
        ],
        [
          "useless",
          "useless"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly UK, attributive) Anything ingenious (and often complex) but absurdly impractical or even useless."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "attributive"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "W. Heath Robinson"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "Heath Robinson"
}

Download raw JSONL data for Heath Robinson meaning in All languages combined (1.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (df33d17 and 4ed51a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.