See fourth estate on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "The three (in England) estates were originally the three classes of people who could participate in government, either directly or by electing representatives – originally the clergy, barons/knights, and the commons (though they changed over time). Later the \"three estates\" were misunderstood as being the three governmental powers necessary for legislation: the Crown, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons; from there, the idea of a \"fourth estate\" was often used in satirical or jocular expressions, before developing a fixed association with the Press.\nIn the modern sense often attributed to Edmund Burke (1787), popularized by essayist William Hazlitt in the 19th century.",
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"_dis": "66 34",
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"_dis": "62 38",
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"_dis": "67 33",
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{
"_dis": "70 30",
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"_dis": "65 35",
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"_dis": "69 31",
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 104",
"text": "What is more barbarous than to see a nation […] where justice is lawfully denied him, that hath not wherewithall to pay for it; and that this merchandize hath so great credit, that in a politicall government there should be set up a fourth estate [tr. quatriesme estat] of Lawyers, breathsellers and pettifoggers […]"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A hypothetical fourth class of civic subjects, or fourth body (in Britain, after the Crown, and the two Houses of Parliament) which governed legislation."
],
"id": "en-fourth_estate-en-noun-I6rxu0D2",
"raw_glosses": [
"(obsolete) A hypothetical fourth class of civic subjects, or fourth body (in Britain, after the Crown, and the two Houses of Parliament) which governed legislation."
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "94 6",
"word": "fifth estate"
},
{
"_dis1": "94 6",
"word": "Fleet Street"
}
],
"tags": [
"obsolete"
]
},
{
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"ref": "1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 31, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:",
"text": "“Of what profession is Mr. Archer?”\n“Of the Corporation of the Goosequill—of the Press, my boy,” said Warrington; “of the fourth estate.”",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2020, AlternateHistoryHub, 16:26 from the start, in The 2010s: A Reflection Back On A Wacky Decade, spoken by Cody Franklin:",
"text": "The fourth estate is a term to describe the power that journalists and news media have to keep the powers of government in check by informing the citizens. The way citizens have received news and information has always evolved, but throughout that whole time, having an informed audience was seen as a necessity to a functioning democracy. The newspaper itself has been dying for a while, even before social media, all thanks to 24-hour news.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Journalism or journalists considered as a group; the press."
],
"id": "en-fourth_estate-en-noun-A2ipusHp",
"links": [
[
"Journalism",
"journalism"
],
[
"journalist",
"journalist"
],
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"press",
"press"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Journalism or journalists considered as a group; the press."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "četvǎrta vlast",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "четвърта власт"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "dìsìquán",
"sense": "press",
"word": "第四权"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "press",
"word": "neljäs valtiomahti"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "quatrième pouvoir"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "vierte Gewalt"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "הרשות הרביעית"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "press",
"word": "העיתונות"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "id",
"lang": "Indonesian",
"sense": "press",
"word": "hak kuasa keempat"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "no",
"lang": "Norwegian",
"sense": "press",
"word": "den fjerde statsmakt"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "fa",
"lang": "Persian",
"sense": "press",
"word": "رکن چهارم مشروطیت"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "czwarta władza"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "četvjórtaja vlastʹ",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "четвёртая власть"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "cuarto poder"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "tredje statsmakten"
}
]
}
],
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"wikipedia": [
"Edmund Burke",
"William Hazlitt"
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"word": "fourth estate"
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{
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"Terms with German translations",
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"Terms with Indonesian translations",
"Terms with Mandarin translations",
"Terms with Norwegian translations",
"Terms with Persian translations",
"Terms with Polish translations",
"Terms with Russian translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations",
"Terms with Swedish translations"
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"etymology_text": "The three (in England) estates were originally the three classes of people who could participate in government, either directly or by electing representatives – originally the clergy, barons/knights, and the commons (though they changed over time). Later the \"three estates\" were misunderstood as being the three governmental powers necessary for legislation: the Crown, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons; from there, the idea of a \"fourth estate\" was often used in satirical or jocular expressions, before developing a fixed association with the Press.\nIn the modern sense often attributed to Edmund Burke (1787), popularized by essayist William Hazlitt in the 19th century.",
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "fifth estate"
},
{
"word": "Fleet Street"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with obsolete senses"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 104",
"text": "What is more barbarous than to see a nation […] where justice is lawfully denied him, that hath not wherewithall to pay for it; and that this merchandize hath so great credit, that in a politicall government there should be set up a fourth estate [tr. quatriesme estat] of Lawyers, breathsellers and pettifoggers […]"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A hypothetical fourth class of civic subjects, or fourth body (in Britain, after the Crown, and the two Houses of Parliament) which governed legislation."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(obsolete) A hypothetical fourth class of civic subjects, or fourth body (in Britain, after the Crown, and the two Houses of Parliament) which governed legislation."
],
"tags": [
"obsolete"
]
},
{
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"ref": "1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 31, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:",
"text": "“Of what profession is Mr. Archer?”\n“Of the Corporation of the Goosequill—of the Press, my boy,” said Warrington; “of the fourth estate.”",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2020, AlternateHistoryHub, 16:26 from the start, in The 2010s: A Reflection Back On A Wacky Decade, spoken by Cody Franklin:",
"text": "The fourth estate is a term to describe the power that journalists and news media have to keep the powers of government in check by informing the citizens. The way citizens have received news and information has always evolved, but throughout that whole time, having an informed audience was seen as a necessity to a functioning democracy. The newspaper itself has been dying for a while, even before social media, all thanks to 24-hour news.",
"type": "quote"
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],
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"Journalism or journalists considered as a group; the press."
],
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],
[
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"journalist"
],
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]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Journalism or journalists considered as a group; the press."
],
"tags": [
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"translations": [
{
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "četvǎrta vlast",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "четвърта власт"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "dìsìquán",
"sense": "press",
"word": "第四权"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "press",
"word": "neljäs valtiomahti"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "quatrième pouvoir"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "vierte Gewalt"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "הרשות הרביעית"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "press",
"word": "העיתונות"
},
{
"code": "id",
"lang": "Indonesian",
"sense": "press",
"word": "hak kuasa keempat"
},
{
"code": "no",
"lang": "Norwegian",
"sense": "press",
"word": "den fjerde statsmakt"
},
{
"code": "fa",
"lang": "Persian",
"sense": "press",
"word": "رکن چهارم مشروطیت"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "czwarta władza"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "četvjórtaja vlastʹ",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "четвёртая власть"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "cuarto poder"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "press",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "tredje statsmakten"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Edmund Burke",
"William Hazlitt"
],
"word": "fourth estate"
}
Download raw JSONL data for fourth estate meaning in All languages combined (5.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 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.