"always a bridesmaid, never a bride" meaning in All languages combined

See always a bridesmaid, never a bride on Wiktionary

Phrase [English]

Etymology: Title of a 1917 English Music Hall song by Charles Collins. Later used in a United States advertisement for Listerine mouthwash (implying that the use of mouthwash could improve a woman's chances of marriage). Head templates: {{head|en|phrase|head=always a bridesmaid, never a bride}} always a bridesmaid, never a bride
  1. Said of a person who has potential that is never fulfilled. Synonyms: always the bridesmaid, never the bride Related terms: Susan Lucci
    Sense id: en-always_a_bridesmaid,_never_a_bride-en-phrase-qO-y-V9w Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for always a bridesmaid, never a bride meaning in All languages combined (2.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Title of a 1917 English Music Hall song by Charles Collins. Later used in a United States advertisement for Listerine mouthwash (implying that the use of mouthwash could improve a woman's chances of marriage).",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "always a bridesmaid, never a bride"
      },
      "expansion": "always a bridesmaid, never a bride",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1959 June 15, “After Belmont Mishap: Sore but Chipper is Eddie Arcaro”, in The Spokesman-Review, retrieved 2013-04-10, page 10",
          "text": "Sword Dancer seemed destined to be always a bridesmaid, never a bride, after losing the Kentucky derby by a nose to Tomy Lee and finishing second, beaten four lengths, to Royal Orbit in the Preakness.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997, Jaqueline Girdner, A Cry for Self Help, page 137",
          "text": "\"[…]But he was always a bridesmaid, never a bride. He 'assisted.' He wrote pamphlets. He even ghosted biographies for some of the biggies. But he never really got his career off the rocks until Sally died. So he wrote romances for the money.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Michael Young, The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon's Life Struggle, page 101",
          "text": "[…]upon Musawi's assassination he was promoted over the head of Sheikh Naim Qassem, to this day Hezbollah's deputy secretary-general—always a bridesmaid, never a bride.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said of a person who has potential that is never fulfilled."
      ],
      "id": "en-always_a_bridesmaid,_never_a_bride-en-phrase-qO-y-V9w",
      "links": [
        [
          "potential",
          "potential#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "Susan Lucci"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "always the bridesmaid, never the bride"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "always a bridesmaid, never a bride"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Title of a 1917 English Music Hall song by Charles Collins. Later used in a United States advertisement for Listerine mouthwash (implying that the use of mouthwash could improve a woman's chances of marriage).",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "always a bridesmaid, never a bride"
      },
      "expansion": "always a bridesmaid, never a bride",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "Susan Lucci"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1959 June 15, “After Belmont Mishap: Sore but Chipper is Eddie Arcaro”, in The Spokesman-Review, retrieved 2013-04-10, page 10",
          "text": "Sword Dancer seemed destined to be always a bridesmaid, never a bride, after losing the Kentucky derby by a nose to Tomy Lee and finishing second, beaten four lengths, to Royal Orbit in the Preakness.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997, Jaqueline Girdner, A Cry for Self Help, page 137",
          "text": "\"[…]But he was always a bridesmaid, never a bride. He 'assisted.' He wrote pamphlets. He even ghosted biographies for some of the biggies. But he never really got his career off the rocks until Sally died. So he wrote romances for the money.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Michael Young, The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon's Life Struggle, page 101",
          "text": "[…]upon Musawi's assassination he was promoted over the head of Sheikh Naim Qassem, to this day Hezbollah's deputy secretary-general—always a bridesmaid, never a bride.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said of a person who has potential that is never fulfilled."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "potential",
          "potential#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "always the bridesmaid, never the bride"
    }
  ],
  "word": "always a bridesmaid, never a bride"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). 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.