"artful dodger" meaning in All languages combined

See artful dodger on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: en-au-artful dodger.ogg Forms: artful dodgers [plural]
Etymology: From the nickname of a skillful young pickpocket and rascal in Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens. Head templates: {{en-noun}} artful dodger (plural artful dodgers)
  1. (idiomatic) A crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): People Synonyms: rapscallion, slyboots, trickster, Artful Dodger
    Sense id: en-artful_dodger-en-noun-rTLWTSQd Disambiguation of People: 81 19 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 68 32 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 62 38 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 81 19 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 74 26
  2. (set phrase) One who deftly evades obstacles, pursuers, inconveniences, or other difficulties. Synonyms: eluder, evader
    Sense id: en-artful_dodger-en-noun-Bb57FHFd

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for artful dodger meaning in All languages combined (4.2kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the nickname of a skillful young pickpocket and rascal in Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "artful dodgers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "artful dodger (plural artful dodgers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "68 32",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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          "_dis": "62 38",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "81 19",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "74 26",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "81 19",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 45, in Little Women",
          "text": "Meg made many moral rules, and tried to keep them, but what mother was ever proof against the winning wiles, the ingenious evasions, or the tranquil audacity of the miniature men and women who so early show themselves accomplished Artful Dodgers?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1971 October 4, “The Nation: Crime and Punishment...”, in Time, retrieved 2014-02-25",
          "text": "Timothy Mack has spent 13 years spiriting wallets from the pockets and purses of Los Angelenos, an artful dodger's career that has been interrupted by 20 arrests and two jail terms.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, P. T. Deutermann, The Edge of Honor, page 183",
          "text": "Perfect little con man and artful dodger, always on the make for some angle or another.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner."
      ],
      "id": "en-artful_dodger-en-noun-rTLWTSQd",
      "links": [
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          "crafty",
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "unscrupulous",
          "unscrupulous"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "rapscallion"
        },
        {
          "word": "slyboots"
        },
        {
          "word": "trickster"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "87 13",
          "word": "Artful Dodger"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Michael O'Brien, A Cry of Stone, page 742",
          "text": "I was a pussyfoot, an artful dodger, sidestepping abandoned children, waifs and strays, foundlings, castaways, and junk-people.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Jim Cherry, The Last Stage, page 81",
          "text": "I could see the traps and landmines ahead and avoid them, a real artful dodger.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 August 15, Brenda Goodman, “Will No Cage Hold Him? Monkey Again Escapes Zoo”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-02-25",
          "text": "For the second time in two weeks, Oliver, a 9-year-old capuchin monkey at a Mississippi zoo, escaped his cage, and this time, his keepers said he proved to be an even more artful dodger.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One who deftly evades obstacles, pursuers, inconveniences, or other difficulties."
      ],
      "id": "en-artful_dodger-en-noun-Bb57FHFd",
      "links": [
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          "set phrase",
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          "deftly",
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        ],
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        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "set phrase",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(set phrase) One who deftly evades obstacles, pursuers, inconveniences, or other difficulties."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "eluder"
        },
        {
          "word": "evader"
        }
      ]
    }
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  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "en-au-artful dodger.ogg",
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  "wikipedia": [
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  "word": "artful dodger"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English eponyms",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms derived from Dickensian works",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
    "en:People"
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  "etymology_text": "From the nickname of a skillful young pickpocket and rascal in Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "artful dodgers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "artful dodger (plural artful dodgers)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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  "senses": [
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        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
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          "ref": "1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 45, in Little Women",
          "text": "Meg made many moral rules, and tried to keep them, but what mother was ever proof against the winning wiles, the ingenious evasions, or the tranquil audacity of the miniature men and women who so early show themselves accomplished Artful Dodgers?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1971 October 4, “The Nation: Crime and Punishment...”, in Time, retrieved 2014-02-25",
          "text": "Timothy Mack has spent 13 years spiriting wallets from the pockets and purses of Los Angelenos, an artful dodger's career that has been interrupted by 20 arrests and two jail terms.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, P. T. Deutermann, The Edge of Honor, page 183",
          "text": "Perfect little con man and artful dodger, always on the make for some angle or another.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner."
      ],
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        [
          "crime",
          "crime"
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        [
          "unscrupulous",
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        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "rapscallion"
        },
        {
          "word": "slyboots"
        },
        {
          "word": "trickster"
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      "tags": [
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        {
          "ref": "2003, Michael O'Brien, A Cry of Stone, page 742",
          "text": "I was a pussyfoot, an artful dodger, sidestepping abandoned children, waifs and strays, foundlings, castaways, and junk-people.",
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        {
          "ref": "2005, Jim Cherry, The Last Stage, page 81",
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          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2007 August 15, Brenda Goodman, “Will No Cage Hold Him? Monkey Again Escapes Zoo”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-02-25",
          "text": "For the second time in two weeks, Oliver, a 9-year-old capuchin monkey at a Mississippi zoo, escaped his cage, and this time, his keepers said he proved to be an even more artful dodger.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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        "One who deftly evades obstacles, pursuers, inconveniences, or other difficulties."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(set phrase) One who deftly evades obstacles, pursuers, inconveniences, or other difficulties."
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "Artful Dodger"
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  "wikipedia": [
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  "word": "artful dodger"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-06-20 using wiktextract (1b9bfc5 and 0136956). 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.