See ball and chain on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "balls and chains",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
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},
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"lang_code": "en",
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{
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{
"_dis": "43 14 43",
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"ref": "1964, “The House of the Rising Sun”, performed by The Animals:",
"text": "Well, I got one foot on the platform / The other foot on the train / I'm goin' back to New Orleans / To wear that ball and chain",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1990, Mike Ness (songwriter), Social Distortion (band), “Ball and Chain”",
"text": "Take away this ball and chain."
}
],
"glosses": [
"A heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner's leg by a chain as a means of restraint."
],
"id": "en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-Zz1gaOqN",
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "62 35 3",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "means of restraint",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "boulet"
},
{
"_dis1": "62 35 3",
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "means of restraint",
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"feminine",
"plural"
],
"word": "bukagije"
}
]
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],
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"One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
],
"id": "en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-rJrbqxQt",
"links": [
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang) One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
],
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},
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{
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"ref": "2011, John Bradley, Cadbury's Purple Reign: The Story Behind Chocolate's Best-Loved Brand:",
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"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
],
"id": "en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-ZQ9qdKyM",
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"(figurative) Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
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"word": "ball and chain"
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"Pages with entries",
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},
{
"ref": "1990, Mike Ness (songwriter), Social Distortion (band), “Ball and Chain”",
"text": "Take away this ball and chain."
}
],
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"A heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner's leg by a chain as a means of restraint."
]
},
{
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],
"glosses": [
"One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
],
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"(slang) One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
],
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"type": "quote"
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],
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"Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
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[
"freedom",
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"(figurative) Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
],
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],
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"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "means of restraint",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "boulet"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "means of restraint",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"plural"
],
"word": "bukagije"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Kimitoön"
],
"word": "ball and chain"
}
Download raw JSONL data for ball and chain meaning in All languages combined (2.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (3dadd05 and f1c2b61). 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.