See greased lightning on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for greased lightning meaning in All languages combined (3.3kB)
{
"etymology_text": "Believed to come from the observation that greased machinery tends to run faster, and the notion that if a lightning strike (the fastest normally observed movement) could be greased, it might move even faster. Originally US usage, but soon well known in UK due to Thackeray's use in 1848 (see cite).",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "greased lightning (uncountable)",
"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"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1840, American Philosophical Society, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge. Vol. XVIII. July 1878 to March 1880",
"text": "We find there quite seriously the monstrous hyperboles of swallowing a camel, of having a wooden beam in the eye, of a camel's going through the eye of a needle, of heaping coals of fire on the head; all well enough as jokes, like the description of the Green Mountain road so steep that \"greased lightning could not go down it without the breeching on\".",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1922, James Joyce, Ulysses",
"text": "And off he pops like greased lightning.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006, Mike Lloyd, Only the Gods Decide",
"text": "You have to take your hat off to them. They've moved like greased lightning. I should have remembered about them. Slippery as a 'barrel load of eels' they are.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006, Kerri Pomarolli, If I'm Waiting on God, Then What Am I Doing in a Christian Chatroom?: Confessions of a Do-It-Yourself Single",
"text": "I got on that computer faster than greased lightning and sent him an email.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Something incredibly fast (now mainly used in comparison: like or faster than greased lightning)."
],
"id": "en-greased_lightning-en-noun-UXaJxGYP",
"links": [
[
"incredibly",
"incredibly"
],
[
"fast",
"fast#Adjective"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"word": "jako namydlený blesk"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "smurt lyn"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"word": "rasvattu salama"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "geölte Blitz"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "wie der geölte Blitz"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "oljet lyn"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "olja lyn"
},
{
"code": "nn",
"lang": "Norwegian Nynorsk",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "olja lyn"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"word": "błyskawiczny"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "oljad blixt"
}
]
}
],
"word": "greased lightning"
}
{
"etymology_text": "Believed to come from the observation that greased machinery tends to run faster, and the notion that if a lightning strike (the fastest normally observed movement) could be greased, it might move even faster. Originally US usage, but soon well known in UK due to Thackeray's use in 1848 (see cite).",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "greased lightning (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with quotations",
"English uncountable nouns"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1840, American Philosophical Society, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge. Vol. XVIII. July 1878 to March 1880",
"text": "We find there quite seriously the monstrous hyperboles of swallowing a camel, of having a wooden beam in the eye, of a camel's going through the eye of a needle, of heaping coals of fire on the head; all well enough as jokes, like the description of the Green Mountain road so steep that \"greased lightning could not go down it without the breeching on\".",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1922, James Joyce, Ulysses",
"text": "And off he pops like greased lightning.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006, Mike Lloyd, Only the Gods Decide",
"text": "You have to take your hat off to them. They've moved like greased lightning. I should have remembered about them. Slippery as a 'barrel load of eels' they are.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006, Kerri Pomarolli, If I'm Waiting on God, Then What Am I Doing in a Christian Chatroom?: Confessions of a Do-It-Yourself Single",
"text": "I got on that computer faster than greased lightning and sent him an email.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Something incredibly fast (now mainly used in comparison: like or faster than greased lightning)."
],
"links": [
[
"incredibly",
"incredibly"
],
[
"fast",
"fast#Adjective"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"word": "jako namydlený blesk"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "smurt lyn"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"word": "rasvattu salama"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "geölte Blitz"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "wie der geölte Blitz"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "oljet lyn"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "olja lyn"
},
{
"code": "nn",
"lang": "Norwegian Nynorsk",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "olja lyn"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"word": "błyskawiczny"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Something incredibly fast",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "oljad blixt"
}
],
"word": "greased lightning"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). 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.
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