"baby and bathwater" meaning in All languages combined

See baby and bathwater on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-baby and bathwater.wav
Etymology: From the phrase throw the baby out with the bathwater. Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} baby and bathwater pl (plural only)
  1. (idiomatic, often attributively) Used in reference to an error in which something valuable is discarded in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted. Tags: attributive, idiomatic, often, plural, plural-only
{
  "etymology_text": "From the phrase throw the baby out with the bathwater.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "baby and bathwater pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English coordinated pairs",
          "parents": [
            "Coordinated pairs",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English pluralia tantum",
          "parents": [
            "Pluralia tantum",
            "Nouns",
            "Lemmas"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012, Michael Staudenmaier, Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 1969–1986, Edinburgh: AK Press, →ISBN, page 23:",
          "text": "From this perspective, the limits of the radical feminist worldview seemed increasingly frustrating to the feminist radicals. In some cases, this led to a baby and bathwater sort of reaction, where even the important lessons of consciousness raising were dismissed as middle-class diversions.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used in reference to an error in which something valuable is discarded in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted."
      ],
      "id": "en-baby_and_bathwater-en-noun-Eo6uEID3",
      "links": [
        [
          "error",
          "error#English"
        ],
        [
          "valuable",
          "valuable#English"
        ],
        [
          "discard",
          "discard#English"
        ],
        [
          "unwanted",
          "unwanted#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, often attributively) Used in reference to an error in which something valuable is discarded in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "attributive",
        "idiomatic",
        "often",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-baby and bathwater.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cf/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-baby_and_bathwater.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-baby_and_bathwater.wav.mp3",
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    }
  ],
  "word": "baby and bathwater"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the phrase throw the baby out with the bathwater.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "baby and bathwater pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English coordinated pairs",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English pluralia tantum",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012, Michael Staudenmaier, Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 1969–1986, Edinburgh: AK Press, →ISBN, page 23:",
          "text": "From this perspective, the limits of the radical feminist worldview seemed increasingly frustrating to the feminist radicals. In some cases, this led to a baby and bathwater sort of reaction, where even the important lessons of consciousness raising were dismissed as middle-class diversions.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used in reference to an error in which something valuable is discarded in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "error",
          "error#English"
        ],
        [
          "valuable",
          "valuable#English"
        ],
        [
          "discard",
          "discard#English"
        ],
        [
          "unwanted",
          "unwanted#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, often attributively) Used in reference to an error in which something valuable is discarded in the process of removing or rejecting something unwanted."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "attributive",
        "idiomatic",
        "often",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-baby and bathwater.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cf/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-baby_and_bathwater.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-baby_and_bathwater.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cf/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-baby_and_bathwater.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-baby_and_bathwater.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "baby and bathwater"
}

Download raw JSONL data for baby and bathwater meaning in All languages combined (2.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (7c21d10 and f2e72e5). 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.