"chew the scenery" meaning in All languages combined

See chew the scenery on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: en-au-chew the scenery.ogg Forms: chews the scenery [present, singular, third-person], chewing the scenery [participle, present], chewed the scenery [participle, past], chewed the scenery [past]
Etymology: Its earliest reference is listed in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang as being used by Mary Hallock Foote in Coeur D'Alene in 1894.http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001024 Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} chew the scenery (third-person singular simple present chews the scenery, present participle chewing the scenery, simple past and past participle chewed the scenery)
  1. (idiomatic, performing arts) To display excessive emotion or to act in an exaggerated manner while performing; to be melodramatic; to be flamboyant. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Acting Synonyms: ham it up, melodramatize, overact, tear a cat, chew on the scenery, chew up the scenery Derived forms: scenery-chewer, scenery-chewing Translations (To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner): cabotiner (French), surjouer (French), essere sopra le righe (Italian), robar escena (Spanish)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

{
  "etymology_text": "Its earliest reference is listed in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang as being used by Mary Hallock Foote in Coeur D'Alene in 1894.http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001024",
  "forms": [
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      "form": "chews the scenery",
      "tags": [
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      "form": "chewed the scenery",
      "tags": [
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    {
      "form": "chewed the scenery",
      "tags": [
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      "args": {
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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          "kind": "other",
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        {
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Acting",
          "orig": "en:Acting",
          "parents": [
            "Art",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "scenery-chewer"
        },
        {
          "word": "scenery-chewing"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1989 November 27, David Denby, “A Farewell to Arms [review of Steel Magnolias]”, in New York Magazine:",
          "text": "The way the six stars chew the scenery is nothing compared to their abuse of one another.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 October 11, James Poniewozik, “Fall TV Preview”, in Time:",
          "text": "Starring as a Great White Hope police commissioner sent to clean up Washington, D.C., Nelson displays a set of pipes barely hinted at in his years on \"Coach,\" spending the long pilot hour barking, bloviating, singing(!) and generally chewing the scenery.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To display excessive emotion or to act in an exaggerated manner while performing; to be melodramatic; to be flamboyant."
      ],
      "id": "en-chew_the_scenery-en-verb-bwGCdUQ6",
      "links": [
        [
          "performing arts",
          "performing arts"
        ],
        [
          "excessive",
          "excessive"
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        [
          "emotion",
          "emotion"
        ],
        [
          "exaggerate",
          "exaggerate"
        ],
        [
          "melodramatic",
          "melodramatic"
        ],
        [
          "flamboyant",
          "flamboyant"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "performing arts",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, performing arts) To display excessive emotion or to act in an exaggerated manner while performing; to be melodramatic; to be flamboyant."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "ham it up"
        },
        {
          "word": "melodramatize"
        },
        {
          "word": "overact"
        },
        {
          "word": "tear a cat"
        },
        {
          "word": "chew on the scenery"
        },
        {
          "word": "chew up the scenery"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner",
          "word": "cabotiner"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner",
          "word": "surjouer"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner",
          "word": "essere sopra le righe"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner",
          "word": "robar escena"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
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  "word": "chew the scenery"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "scenery-chewer"
    },
    {
      "word": "scenery-chewing"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Its earliest reference is listed in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang as being used by Mary Hallock Foote in Coeur D'Alene in 1894.http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001024",
  "forms": [
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      "form": "chews the scenery",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
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    },
    {
      "form": "chewing the scenery",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chewed the scenery",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chewed the scenery",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
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        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "chew the scenery (third-person singular simple present chews the scenery, present participle chewing the scenery, simple past and past participle chewed the scenery)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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        {
          "ref": "1989 November 27, David Denby, “A Farewell to Arms [review of Steel Magnolias]”, in New York Magazine:",
          "text": "The way the six stars chew the scenery is nothing compared to their abuse of one another.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 October 11, James Poniewozik, “Fall TV Preview”, in Time:",
          "text": "Starring as a Great White Hope police commissioner sent to clean up Washington, D.C., Nelson displays a set of pipes barely hinted at in his years on \"Coach,\" spending the long pilot hour barking, bloviating, singing(!) and generally chewing the scenery.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To display excessive emotion or to act in an exaggerated manner while performing; to be melodramatic; to be flamboyant."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "performing arts",
          "performing arts"
        ],
        [
          "excessive",
          "excessive"
        ],
        [
          "emotion",
          "emotion"
        ],
        [
          "exaggerate",
          "exaggerate"
        ],
        [
          "melodramatic",
          "melodramatic"
        ],
        [
          "flamboyant",
          "flamboyant"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "performing arts",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, performing arts) To display excessive emotion or to act in an exaggerated manner while performing; to be melodramatic; to be flamboyant."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
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  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "ham it up"
    },
    {
      "word": "melodramatize"
    },
    {
      "word": "overact"
    },
    {
      "word": "tear a cat"
    },
    {
      "word": "chew on the scenery"
    },
    {
      "word": "chew up the scenery"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner",
      "word": "cabotiner"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner",
      "word": "surjouer"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner",
      "word": "essere sopra le righe"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "To perform in an excessively emotional or exaggerated manner",
      "word": "robar escena"
    }
  ],
  "word": "chew the scenery"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). 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.