See hand waving on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "hand wavings",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "hand-waving",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
},
{
"form": "handwaving",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "hand waving (plural hand wavings)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
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{
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},
{
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},
{
"kind": "other",
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},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Polish translations",
"parents": [],
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}
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "handwavium"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
53,
64
]
],
"text": "The sales pitch sounded good, but there was a lot of hand waving about the price.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
153,
164
]
],
"ref": "2000 August 21, “letter”, in Time:",
"text": "Protesters who demand that this brilliantly humane enterprise be stopped should have their motives questioned. Their protest is nothing but the mindless hand waving of Luddites.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Discussion or argumentation involving approximation, vagueness, educated guessing, or the attempt to explain or excuse vagaries."
],
"id": "en-hand_waving-en-noun-l6-op-Cn",
"links": [
[
"Discussion",
"discussion"
],
[
"argumentation",
"argumentation"
],
[
"approximation",
"approximation"
],
[
"vague",
"vague"
],
[
"guess",
"guess"
],
[
"explain",
"explain"
],
[
"excuse",
"excuse"
],
[
"vagaries",
"vagary"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Discussion or argumentation involving approximation, vagueness, educated guessing, or the attempt to explain or excuse vagaries."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "handwave"
},
{
"word": "handwaving"
},
{
"word": "handwavy"
},
{
"word": "wave of the hand"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"roman": "talwīḥ bi-l-yad",
"sense": "argumentation involving approximation",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "تَلْوِيح بِالْيَد"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "argumentation involving approximation",
"word": "käsienheiluttelu"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "argumentation involving approximation",
"word": "נפנופי־ידיים"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "argumentation involving approximation",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "niejasna argumentacja"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-hand waving.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3e/En-au-hand_waving.ogg/En-au-hand_waving.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/En-au-hand_waving.ogg"
}
],
"word": "hand waving"
}
{
"derived": [
{
"word": "handwavium"
}
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "hand wavings",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "hand-waving",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
},
{
"form": "handwaving",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "hand waving (plural hand wavings)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "handwave"
},
{
"word": "handwaving"
},
{
"word": "handwavy"
},
{
"word": "wave of the hand"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
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"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Arabic translations",
"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with Hebrew translations",
"Terms with Polish translations"
],
"examples": [
{
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53,
64
]
],
"text": "The sales pitch sounded good, but there was a lot of hand waving about the price.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
153,
164
]
],
"ref": "2000 August 21, “letter”, in Time:",
"text": "Protesters who demand that this brilliantly humane enterprise be stopped should have their motives questioned. Their protest is nothing but the mindless hand waving of Luddites.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Discussion or argumentation involving approximation, vagueness, educated guessing, or the attempt to explain or excuse vagaries."
],
"links": [
[
"Discussion",
"discussion"
],
[
"argumentation",
"argumentation"
],
[
"approximation",
"approximation"
],
[
"vague",
"vague"
],
[
"guess",
"guess"
],
[
"explain",
"explain"
],
[
"excuse",
"excuse"
],
[
"vagaries",
"vagary"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Discussion or argumentation involving approximation, vagueness, educated guessing, or the attempt to explain or excuse vagaries."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-hand waving.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3e/En-au-hand_waving.ogg/En-au-hand_waving.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/En-au-hand_waving.ogg"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"roman": "talwīḥ bi-l-yad",
"sense": "argumentation involving approximation",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "تَلْوِيح بِالْيَد"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "argumentation involving approximation",
"word": "käsienheiluttelu"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "argumentation involving approximation",
"word": "נפנופי־ידיים"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "argumentation involving approximation",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "niejasna argumentacja"
}
],
"word": "hand waving"
}
Download raw JSONL data for hand waving meaning in All languages combined (2.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-29 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (e937b02 and f1c2b61). 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.