See balls-out on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Usually said to be from the maximum-speed state of a ball governor, whose balls are swung out to the near-horizontal position. Neither balls-out nor balls to the wall is connected with the vulgar sense of balls (“testicles”) except connotationally via folk etymology. (In that vein of apparent vulgar innuendo, see also rock out with one's cock out.)",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "balls-out (not comparable)",
"name": "en-adj"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "41 14 22 23",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "62 15 9 15",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
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{
"_dis": "75 6 7 12",
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1976, CBer's Handy Atlas/Dictionary, page 9, column 2:",
"text": "He's making a balls-out run for Motor City by nightfall.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Extreme; extremely great."
],
"id": "en-balls-out-en-adj-JMGa60-~",
"links": [
[
"Extreme",
"extreme#English"
],
[
"extremely",
"extremely"
],
[
"great",
"great"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) Extreme; extremely great."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-balls-out.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e5/En-au-balls-out.ogg/En-au-balls-out.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/En-au-balls-out.ogg"
}
],
"word": "balls-out"
}
{
"etymology_text": "Usually said to be from the maximum-speed state of a ball governor, whose balls are swung out to the near-horizontal position. Neither balls-out nor balls to the wall is connected with the vulgar sense of balls (“testicles”) except connotationally via folk etymology. (In that vein of apparent vulgar innuendo, see also rock out with one's cock out.)",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "balls-out (not comparable)",
"name": "en-adv"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adv",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0",
"word": "balls to the wall"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0",
"word": "a synonymous term whose proposed etymologic connection to this one has been challenged"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"Descriptive of the use of a centrifugal governor at maximum speed, corresponding to full throttle."
],
"id": "en-balls-out-en-adv-sbGCijuj",
"links": [
[
"full throttle",
"full throttle"
]
],
"tags": [
"not-comparable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"glosses": [
"With great abandon."
],
"id": "en-balls-out-en-adv-TmeYCgdZ",
"links": [
[
"abandon",
"abandon"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) With great abandon."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"glosses": [
"At the fastest possible speed."
],
"id": "en-balls-out-en-adv-muMmeg8I",
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) At the fastest possible speed."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-balls-out.ogg",
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"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/En-au-balls-out.ogg"
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],
"word": "balls-out"
}
{
"categories": [
"English adjectives",
"English adverbs",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English uncomparable adjectives",
"English uncomparable adverbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "Usually said to be from the maximum-speed state of a ball governor, whose balls are swung out to the near-horizontal position. Neither balls-out nor balls to the wall is connected with the vulgar sense of balls (“testicles”) except connotationally via folk etymology. (In that vein of apparent vulgar innuendo, see also rock out with one's cock out.)",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "balls-out (not comparable)",
"name": "en-adj"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English idioms",
"English slang",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1976, CBer's Handy Atlas/Dictionary, page 9, column 2:",
"text": "He's making a balls-out run for Motor City by nightfall.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Extreme; extremely great."
],
"links": [
[
"Extreme",
"extreme#English"
],
[
"extremely",
"extremely"
],
[
"great",
"great"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) Extreme; extremely great."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-balls-out.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e5/En-au-balls-out.ogg/En-au-balls-out.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/En-au-balls-out.ogg"
}
],
"word": "balls-out"
}
{
"categories": [
"English adjectives",
"English adverbs",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English uncomparable adjectives",
"English uncomparable adverbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "Usually said to be from the maximum-speed state of a ball governor, whose balls are swung out to the near-horizontal position. Neither balls-out nor balls to the wall is connected with the vulgar sense of balls (“testicles”) except connotationally via folk etymology. (In that vein of apparent vulgar innuendo, see also rock out with one's cock out.)",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "balls-out (not comparable)",
"name": "en-adv"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adv",
"related": [
{
"word": "balls to the wall"
},
{
"word": "a synonymous term whose proposed etymologic connection to this one has been challenged"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"Descriptive of the use of a centrifugal governor at maximum speed, corresponding to full throttle."
],
"links": [
[
"full throttle",
"full throttle"
]
],
"tags": [
"not-comparable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English idioms",
"English slang"
],
"glosses": [
"With great abandon."
],
"links": [
[
"abandon",
"abandon"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) With great abandon."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"American English",
"English idioms",
"English slang"
],
"glosses": [
"At the fastest possible speed."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang) At the fastest possible speed."
],
"tags": [
"US",
"idiomatic",
"not-comparable",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-balls-out.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e5/En-au-balls-out.ogg/En-au-balls-out.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/En-au-balls-out.ogg"
}
],
"word": "balls-out"
}
Download raw JSONL data for balls-out meaning in All languages combined (3.5kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (b941637 and 4230888). 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.