"never the twain shall meet" meaning in All languages combined

See never the twain shall meet on Wiktionary

Phrase [English]

Etymology: From the poem The Ballad of East and West. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} never the twain shall meet
  1. (idiomatic) Used to emphasize that two subjects are so different that they cannot coexist or agree with each other. Wikipedia link: The Ballad of East and West Tags: idiomatic Related terms: apples and oranges
    Sense id: en-never_the_twain_shall_meet-en-phrase-uGnRg4BN Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English negative polarity items, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
{
  "etymology_text": "From the poem The Ballad of East and West.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "never the twain shall meet",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English negative polarity items",
          "parents": [
            "Negative polarity items",
            "Terms by semantic function"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1981 December 27, Charles Bonnell, “Throwing In The Towel”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 23, page 5:",
          "text": "In Silverstein's terms, Frank is an \"excitement seeker\" and the lover is a \"home builder.\" Never the twain shall meet. Again, for a while I saw the conflict between the two in the movie as a refreshing examination of a problem many gay couples (of both sexes) face. But […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to emphasize that two subjects are so different that they cannot coexist or agree with each other."
      ],
      "id": "en-never_the_twain_shall_meet-en-phrase-uGnRg4BN",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Used to emphasize that two subjects are so different that they cannot coexist or agree with each other."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "apples and oranges"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "The Ballad of East and West"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "never the twain shall meet"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the poem The Ballad of East and West.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "never the twain shall meet",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "apples and oranges"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English negative polarity items",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1981 December 27, Charles Bonnell, “Throwing In The Towel”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 23, page 5:",
          "text": "In Silverstein's terms, Frank is an \"excitement seeker\" and the lover is a \"home builder.\" Never the twain shall meet. Again, for a while I saw the conflict between the two in the movie as a refreshing examination of a problem many gay couples (of both sexes) face. But […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to emphasize that two subjects are so different that they cannot coexist or agree with each other."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Used to emphasize that two subjects are so different that they cannot coexist or agree with each other."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "The Ballad of East and West"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "never the twain shall meet"
}

Download raw JSONL data for never the twain shall meet meaning in All languages combined (1.3kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (df33d17 and 4ed51a5). 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.