See keep one's head on a swivel on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "keeps one's head on a swivel",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "keeping one's head on a swivel",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "kept one's head on a swivel",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "kept one's head on a swivel",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "keep<,,kept> one's head on a swivel"
},
"expansion": "keep one's head on a swivel (third-person singular simple present keeps one's head on a swivel, present participle keeping one's head on a swivel, simple past and past participle kept one's head on a swivel)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
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"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2004, Will Ferrell, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, spoken by Rob Burgundy (Will Ferrell), Apatow Productions; distributed by DreamWorks Pictures:",
"text": "You all kept your head on a swivel and that's what you gotta do when you find yourself in a vicious cock fight.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021, Polo G (lyrics and music), “Black Hearted”, in Hall of Fame:",
"text": "Head on a swivel, opposition like a block away",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Keesha Middlemass, “Unwelcome Homecoming”, in Convicted and Condemned: The Politics and Policies of Prisoner Reentry, page 65:",
"text": "\"Reentering is about keeping your head on a swivel. Ya gotta keep your head on a swivel, I'm telling ya, because you don't know what's coming, where it's coming from.\"",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To be on the alert, to be watchful."
],
"id": "en-keep_one's_head_on_a_swivel-en-verb-9vj5rQjY",
"links": [
[
"on the alert",
"on the alert"
],
[
"watchful",
"watchful"
]
],
"qualifier": "(with \"for\")",
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive, idiomatic, (with \"for\")) To be on the alert, to be watchful."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"sense": "to be watchful",
"word": "keep an eye out"
},
{
"sense": "to be watchful",
"word": "keep one's eyes open"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive"
]
}
],
"word": "keep one's head on a swivel"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "keeps one's head on a swivel",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "keeping one's head on a swivel",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "kept one's head on a swivel",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "kept one's head on a swivel",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "keep<,,kept> one's head on a swivel"
},
"expansion": "keep one's head on a swivel (third-person singular simple present keeps one's head on a swivel, present participle keeping one's head on a swivel, simple past and past participle kept one's head on a swivel)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English intransitive verbs",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2004, Will Ferrell, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, spoken by Rob Burgundy (Will Ferrell), Apatow Productions; distributed by DreamWorks Pictures:",
"text": "You all kept your head on a swivel and that's what you gotta do when you find yourself in a vicious cock fight.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021, Polo G (lyrics and music), “Black Hearted”, in Hall of Fame:",
"text": "Head on a swivel, opposition like a block away",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Keesha Middlemass, “Unwelcome Homecoming”, in Convicted and Condemned: The Politics and Policies of Prisoner Reentry, page 65:",
"text": "\"Reentering is about keeping your head on a swivel. Ya gotta keep your head on a swivel, I'm telling ya, because you don't know what's coming, where it's coming from.\"",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To be on the alert, to be watchful."
],
"links": [
[
"on the alert",
"on the alert"
],
[
"watchful",
"watchful"
]
],
"qualifier": "(with \"for\")",
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive, idiomatic, (with \"for\")) To be on the alert, to be watchful."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"sense": "to be watchful",
"word": "keep an eye out"
},
{
"sense": "to be watchful",
"word": "keep one's eyes open"
}
],
"word": "keep one's head on a swivel"
}
Download raw JSONL data for keep one's head on a swivel meaning in All languages combined (2.2kB)
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.