"make an ass of" meaning in All languages combined

See make an ass of on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: En-au-make an ass of.ogg Forms: makes an ass of [present, singular, third-person], making an ass of [participle, present], made an ass of [participle, past], made an ass of [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|make<,,made> an ass of}} make an ass of (third-person singular simple present makes an ass of, present participle making an ass of, simple past and past participle made an ass of)
  1. (transitive, idiomatic) To cause (someone) to seem foolish. Tags: idiomatic, transitive Synonyms: make a fool of, make a fool out of, make a monkey of, make a monkey out of
    Sense id: en-make_an_ass_of-en-verb-oV~Q8lJn Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "makes an ass of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
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    },
    {
      "form": "making an ass of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
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    },
    {
      "form": "made an ass of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
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    },
    {
      "form": "made an ass of",
      "tags": [
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
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      "name": "en-verb"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 152:",
          "text": "I ſee their knauery; this is to make an aſſe of me, / to fright me if they could; […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:",
          "text": "I had sprung to my feet. I was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, \"Sit down, Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008–2021, qntm, “We Need To Talk About Fifty-Five”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 13:",
          "text": "O5-8 does an impressive job of controlling himself, keeping his attention focused on Marion. Clay doesn't fare so well, and quickly sweeps the whole room, even checking behind his back. Making an ass of himself, essentially. He finds nothing. He looks baffled.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cause (someone) to seem foolish."
      ],
      "id": "en-make_an_ass_of-en-verb-oV~Q8lJn",
      "links": [
        [
          "seem",
          "seem"
        ],
        [
          "foolish",
          "foolish"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, idiomatic) To cause (someone) to seem foolish."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "make a fool of"
        },
        {
          "word": "make a fool out of"
        },
        {
          "word": "make a monkey of"
        },
        {
          "word": "make a monkey out of"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/95/En-au-make_an_ass_of.ogg/En-au-make_an_ass_of.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/En-au-make_an_ass_of.ogg"
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  ],
  "word": "make an ass of"
}
{
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    },
    {
      "form": "made an ass of",
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    },
    {
      "form": "made an ass of",
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  "head_templates": [
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      },
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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        "English idioms",
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        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
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        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 152:",
          "text": "I ſee their knauery; this is to make an aſſe of me, / to fright me if they could; […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:",
          "text": "I had sprung to my feet. I was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, \"Sit down, Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008–2021, qntm, “We Need To Talk About Fifty-Five”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 13:",
          "text": "O5-8 does an impressive job of controlling himself, keeping his attention focused on Marion. Clay doesn't fare so well, and quickly sweeps the whole room, even checking behind his back. Making an ass of himself, essentially. He finds nothing. He looks baffled.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cause (someone) to seem foolish."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "seem",
          "seem"
        ],
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          "foolish",
          "foolish"
        ]
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, idiomatic) To cause (someone) to seem foolish."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "make a fool of"
    },
    {
      "word": "make a fool out of"
    },
    {
      "word": "make a monkey of"
    },
    {
      "word": "make a monkey out of"
    }
  ],
  "word": "make an ass of"
}

Download raw JSONL data for make an ass of 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 2025-01-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (b941637 and 4230888). 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.