"coals to Newcastle" meaning in All languages combined

See coals to Newcastle on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: en-au-coals to Newcastle.ogg
Etymology: Newcastle upon Tyne and Newcastle, New South Wales were major coal-exporting cities, so sending coal there would be pointless. Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} coals to Newcastle pl (plural only)
  1. (idiomatic) A pointless venture, in the sense of sending something to a place where it is made, or where they already have an abundance. Wikipedia link: Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle, New South Wales Tags: idiomatic, plural, plural-only Synonyms: owls to Athens Related terms: carry coals to Newcastle
    Sense id: en-coals_to_Newcastle-en-noun-YGPUh-FY Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
{
  "etymology_text": "Newcastle upon Tyne and Newcastle, New South Wales were major coal-exporting cities, so sending coal there would be pointless.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "coals to Newcastle pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "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": "1935, attributed to King George V of the United Kingdom (but possibly a then-circulating joke; see wikiquote)",
          "text": "No more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A pointless venture, in the sense of sending something to a place where it is made, or where they already have an abundance."
      ],
      "id": "en-coals_to_Newcastle-en-noun-YGPUh-FY",
      "links": [
        [
          "venture",
          "venture"
        ],
        [
          "abundance",
          "abundance"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A pointless venture, in the sense of sending something to a place where it is made, or where they already have an abundance."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "carry coals to Newcastle"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "owls to Athens"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Newcastle upon Tyne",
        "Newcastle, New South Wales"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-coals to Newcastle.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e6/En-au-coals_to_Newcastle.ogg/En-au-coals_to_Newcastle.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/En-au-coals_to_Newcastle.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "coals to Newcastle"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Newcastle upon Tyne and Newcastle, New South Wales were major coal-exporting cities, so sending coal there would be pointless.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "coals to Newcastle pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "carry coals to Newcastle"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English pluralia tantum",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1935, attributed to King George V of the United Kingdom (but possibly a then-circulating joke; see wikiquote)",
          "text": "No more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A pointless venture, in the sense of sending something to a place where it is made, or where they already have an abundance."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "venture",
          "venture"
        ],
        [
          "abundance",
          "abundance"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A pointless venture, in the sense of sending something to a place where it is made, or where they already have an abundance."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "owls to Athens"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Newcastle upon Tyne",
        "Newcastle, New South Wales"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-coals to Newcastle.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e6/En-au-coals_to_Newcastle.ogg/En-au-coals_to_Newcastle.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/En-au-coals_to_Newcastle.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "coals to Newcastle"
}

Download raw JSONL data for coals to Newcastle meaning in All languages combined (1.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.