"merry dance" meaning in All languages combined

See merry dance on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: En-au-merry dance.ogg Forms: merry dances [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} merry dance (plural merry dances)
  1. (idiomatic) A useless waste of time resulting from a deception. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: merry chase, wild-goose chase Related terms: chase a rainbow, lead someone a dance, the cake is a lie
    Sense id: en-merry_dance-en-noun-GS40Th3e Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "merry dances",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "merry dance (plural merry dances)",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The children led us on a merry dance with their stories of strangers and shadows in the night.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1912, Stratemeyer Syndicate, chapter 1, in Baseball Joe on the School Nine:",
          "text": "\"That's what happened to me the last time you fired a high snowball. Peaches. That's why I didn't want you to try another while I'm around. You wait until I'm off the campus if you've got to indulge in high jinks. Come on now, fellows, since Peaches has promised to behave himself, let the merry dance go on. Have you tried a shot, Joe? Or you, Sister,\" and Teeter looked at the newcomers.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 March 5, Phil McNulty, “Liverpool 7-0 Manchester United”, in BBC Sport:",
          "text": "Argentine defender Martinez, normally so reliable and combative, was taken apart, especially when Salah led him a merry dance to set up Gakpo to settle the game with Liverpool's third five minutes after half-time.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A useless waste of time resulting from a deception."
      ],
      "id": "en-merry_dance-en-noun-GS40Th3e",
      "links": [
        [
          "useless",
          "useless"
        ],
        [
          "waste of time",
          "waste of time"
        ],
        [
          "deception",
          "deception"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A useless waste of time resulting from a deception."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "chase a rainbow"
        },
        {
          "word": "lead someone a dance"
        },
        {
          "word": "the cake is a lie"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "merry chase"
        },
        {
          "word": "wild-goose chase"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-merry dance.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/83/En-au-merry_dance.ogg/En-au-merry_dance.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/En-au-merry_dance.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "merry dance"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "merry dances",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "merry dance (plural merry dances)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "chase a rainbow"
    },
    {
      "word": "lead someone a dance"
    },
    {
      "word": "the cake is a lie"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The children led us on a merry dance with their stories of strangers and shadows in the night.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1912, Stratemeyer Syndicate, chapter 1, in Baseball Joe on the School Nine:",
          "text": "\"That's what happened to me the last time you fired a high snowball. Peaches. That's why I didn't want you to try another while I'm around. You wait until I'm off the campus if you've got to indulge in high jinks. Come on now, fellows, since Peaches has promised to behave himself, let the merry dance go on. Have you tried a shot, Joe? Or you, Sister,\" and Teeter looked at the newcomers.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 March 5, Phil McNulty, “Liverpool 7-0 Manchester United”, in BBC Sport:",
          "text": "Argentine defender Martinez, normally so reliable and combative, was taken apart, especially when Salah led him a merry dance to set up Gakpo to settle the game with Liverpool's third five minutes after half-time.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A useless waste of time resulting from a deception."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "useless",
          "useless"
        ],
        [
          "waste of time",
          "waste of time"
        ],
        [
          "deception",
          "deception"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A useless waste of time resulting from a deception."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-merry dance.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/83/En-au-merry_dance.ogg/En-au-merry_dance.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/En-au-merry_dance.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "merry chase"
    },
    {
      "word": "wild-goose chase"
    }
  ],
  "word": "merry dance"
}

Download raw JSONL data for merry dance 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 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). 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.