See even a worm will turn on Wiktionary
{ "etymology_text": "First attested in a 1546 collection of proverbs by John Heywood, in the form “Treade a worme on the tayle, and it must turne agayne.” Popularized by William Shakespeare in The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, see quotations.", "head_templates": [ { "args": {}, "expansion": "even a worm will turn", "name": "en-proverb" } ], "lang": "English", "lang_code": "en", "pos": "proverb", "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 proverbs", "parents": [], "source": "w" }, { "kind": "other", "name": "Pages with 1 entry", "parents": [], "source": "w" }, { "kind": "other", "name": "Pages with entries", "parents": [], "source": "w" }, { "kind": "topical", "langcode": "en", "name": "William Shakespeare", "orig": "en:William Shakespeare", "parents": [ "Authors", "Individuals", "Literature", "People", "Culture", "Entertainment", "Writing", "Human", "Society", "Human behaviour", "Language", "All topics", "Communication", "Fundamental" ], "source": "w" } ], "examples": [ { "english": "The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on, and doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.", "ref": "c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 154, column 1:", "text": "The ſmalleſt Worme will turne, being troden on, / And Doues will pecke in ſafegard of their Brood.", "type": "quote" } ], "glosses": [ "Even the meekest or most docile people will retaliate or seek revenge if pushed too far." ], "id": "en-even_a_worm_will_turn-en-proverb-0oCc86WI", "links": [ [ "meek", "meek" ], [ "docile", "docile" ], [ "retaliate", "retaliate" ], [ "revenge", "revenge" ] ], "related": [ { "word": "turnabout is fair play" }, { "word": "worm turns" } ], "wikipedia": [ "John Heywood", "William Shakespeare" ] } ], "word": "even a worm will turn" }
{ "etymology_text": "First attested in a 1546 collection of proverbs by John Heywood, in the form “Treade a worme on the tayle, and it must turne agayne.” Popularized by William Shakespeare in The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, see quotations.", "head_templates": [ { "args": {}, "expansion": "even a worm will turn", "name": "en-proverb" } ], "lang": "English", "lang_code": "en", "pos": "proverb", "related": [ { "word": "turnabout is fair play" }, { "word": "worm turns" } ], "senses": [ { "categories": [ "English entries with incorrect language header", "English lemmas", "English multiword terms", "English proverbs", "English terms with quotations", "Pages with 1 entry", "Pages with entries", "en:William Shakespeare" ], "examples": [ { "english": "The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on, and doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.", "ref": "c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 154, column 1:", "text": "The ſmalleſt Worme will turne, being troden on, / And Doues will pecke in ſafegard of their Brood.", "type": "quote" } ], "glosses": [ "Even the meekest or most docile people will retaliate or seek revenge if pushed too far." ], "links": [ [ "meek", "meek" ], [ "docile", "docile" ], [ "retaliate", "retaliate" ], [ "revenge", "revenge" ] ], "wikipedia": [ "John Heywood", "William Shakespeare" ] } ], "word": "even a worm will turn" }
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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 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). 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.