"ball and chain" meaning in All languages combined

See ball and chain on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: En-au-ball and chain.ogg Forms: balls and chains [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|balls and chains}} ball and chain (plural balls and chains)
  1. A heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner's leg by a chain as a means of restraint. Translations (means of restraint): boulet [masculine] (French), bukagije [feminine, plural] (Serbo-Croatian)
    Sense id: en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-Zz1gaOqN Categories (other): English coordinated pairs Disambiguation of English coordinated pairs: 43 14 43 Disambiguation of 'means of restraint': 62 35 3
  2. (slang) One's wife, as a symbol of restraint. Tags: slang
    Sense id: en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-rJrbqxQt Categories (other): English coordinated pairs Disambiguation of English coordinated pairs: 43 14 43
  3. (figurative) Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities. Tags: figuratively
    Sense id: en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-ZQ9qdKyM Categories (other): English coordinated pairs, English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with French translations, Terms with Serbo-Croatian translations, Marriage Disambiguation of English coordinated pairs: 43 14 43 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 16 26 58 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 14 29 57 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 6 39 55 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 5 37 58 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 17 18 65 Disambiguation of Terms with Serbo-Croatian translations: 27 18 55 Disambiguation of Marriage: 0 15 85

Inflected forms

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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "balls and chains",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "43 14 43",
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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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",
          "tags": [
            "feminine",
            "plural"
          ],
          "word": "bukagije"
        }
      ]
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        "(slang) One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
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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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        ],
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        ],
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        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
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  "sounds": [
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      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cd/En-au-ball_and_chain.ogg/En-au-ball_and_chain.ogg.mp3",
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    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with French translations",
    "Terms with Serbo-Croatian translations",
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        },
        {
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          "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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        "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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        "slang"
      ]
    },
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        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
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        "(figurative) Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
      ],
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      "code": "fr",
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      "sense": "means of restraint",
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        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "boulet"
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      "code": "sh",
      "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
      "sense": "means of restraint",
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      "word": "bukagije"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
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  ],
  "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.