"nondescript" meaning in All languages combined

See nondescript on Wiktionary

Adjective [English]

IPA: /ˈnɒndɪskɹɪpt/ [UK], /nɑndəsˈkɹɪpt/ [US] Audio: en-us-nondescript.ogg [US] Forms: more nondescript [comparative], most nondescript [superlative]
Etymology: From non- + descript. Etymology templates: {{prefix|en|non|descript}} non- + descript Head templates: {{en-adj}} nondescript (comparative more nondescript, superlative most nondescript)
  1. (biology, now rare) Not described (in the academic literature). Tags: archaic Categories (topical): Biology Synonyms: undescribed, unidentified Translations (biology: not described): tunnistamaton (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-nondescript-en-adj-NmFA71~x Topics: biology, natural-sciences Disambiguation of 'biology: not described': 94 6
  2. Without distinguishing qualities or characteristics. Synonyms: undescript [nonstandard], unexceptional Translations (without distinguishing qualities): неопределен (neopredelen) (Bulgarian), mitäänsanomaton (Finnish), banal (French), quelconque (French), indescriptivo [masculine] (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-nondescript-en-adj-T9hHirS5 Disambiguation of 'without distinguishing qualities': 11 89
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: non-descript

Noun [English]

IPA: /ˈnɒndɪskɹɪpt/ [UK], /nɑndəsˈkɹɪpt/ [US] Audio: en-us-nondescript.ogg [US] Forms: nondescripts [plural]
Etymology: From non- + descript. Etymology templates: {{prefix|en|non|descript}} non- + descript Head templates: {{en-noun}} nondescript (plural nondescripts)
  1. (chiefly biology) A species or other type of creature that has not been previously described or identified. Categories (topical): Biology
    Sense id: en-nondescript-en-noun-R2CSu70L Topics: biology, natural-sciences
  2. An undistinguished, unexceptional person or thing.
    Sense id: en-nondescript-en-noun-EVRvg~xz
  3. (UK) An unmarked police car. Tags: UK
    Sense id: en-nondescript-en-noun-Mj62MWlk Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header, English terms prefixed with non- Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 23 13 11 10 43 Disambiguation of English terms prefixed with non-: 28 16 11 9 36
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: non-descript

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for nondescript meaning in All languages combined (7.0kB)

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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "non",
        "3": "descript"
      },
      "expansion": "non- + descript",
      "name": "prefix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From non- + descript.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more nondescript",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most nondescript",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
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  "head_templates": [
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Biology",
          "orig": "en:Biology",
          "parents": [
            "Sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Not described (in the academic literature)."
      ],
      "id": "en-nondescript-en-adj-NmFA71~x",
      "links": [
        [
          "biology",
          "biology"
        ],
        [
          "described",
          "described"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(biology, now rare) Not described (in the academic literature)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "undescribed"
        },
        {
          "word": "unidentified"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "archaic"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "94 6",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "biology: not described",
          "word": "tunnistamaton"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He drove a nondescript silver sedan.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Second Cabin”, in The Amateur Emigrant",
          "text": "There was, besides, a Scots mason, known from his favourite dish as \"Irish Stew,\" three or four nondescript Scots, a fine young Irishman, O'Reilly, and a pair of young men who deserve a special word of condemnation.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1950 April, R. A. H. Weight, “They Passed by My Window”, in Railway Magazine, pages 258-259",
          "text": "In 1919, demobilisation specials from Purfleet, Essex, to the North, usually made up of nondescript, almost paintless or grey stock which had seen long wartime service, chalked with slogans, were worked through by way of Bromley and the North London line […].",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017 February 23, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The Onion AV Club",
          "text": "We open in a grimy, fluorescent-lit military base somewhere in rural England, where the girl from the poster, Melanie (Sennia Nanua), is the star student in a class full of children who are wheeled into school—or at least, the nondescript concrete room that serves as a school—with their arms, legs, and foreheads bound to their wheelchairs by leather straps.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Chippenham (1841)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 57",
          "text": "The plaque, of light-blue hue (a tone favoured by the Wiltshire market town's civic society), can be found on a nondescript structure just outside the station.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Without distinguishing qualities or characteristics."
      ],
      "id": "en-nondescript-en-adj-T9hHirS5",
      "links": [
        [
          "distinguish",
          "distinguish"
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        [
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          "characteristic",
          "characteristic"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "nonstandard"
          ],
          "word": "undescript"
        },
        {
          "word": "unexceptional"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "11 89",
          "code": "bg",
          "lang": "Bulgarian",
          "roman": "neopredelen",
          "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
          "word": "неопределен"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "11 89",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
          "word": "mitäänsanomaton"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "11 89",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
          "word": "banal"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "11 89",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
          "word": "quelconque"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "11 89",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "indescriptivo"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈnɒndɪskɹɪpt/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/nɑndəsˈkɹɪpt/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-nondescript.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/En-us-nondescript.ogg/En-us-nondescript.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/En-us-nondescript.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
      "word": "non-descript"
    }
  ],
  "word": "nondescript"
}

{
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        "2": "non",
        "3": "descript"
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      "expansion": "non- + descript",
      "name": "prefix"
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "From non- + descript.",
  "forms": [
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      "form": "nondescripts",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
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          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
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          "orig": "en:Biology",
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          "ref": "1791, Thomas Paine, Rights of Man",
          "text": "Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical non-descript.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "A species or other type of creature that has not been previously described or identified."
      ],
      "id": "en-nondescript-en-noun-R2CSu70L",
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        "(chiefly biology) A species or other type of creature that has not been previously described or identified."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "An undistinguished, unexceptional person or thing."
      ],
      "id": "en-nondescript-en-noun-EVRvg~xz"
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "23 13 11 10 43",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "28 16 11 9 36",
          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
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      ],
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        {
          "ref": "1970, Peter Laurie, Scotland Yard: a study of the Metropolitan Police, page 118",
          "text": "By a nice British compromise, the enforcement car — visible just then as a white spot on the television screen — has nothing externally to show its police affiliation, but unlike the CID's nondescripts, carries two large policemen in uniform.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unmarked police car."
      ],
      "id": "en-nondescript-en-noun-Mj62MWlk",
      "links": [
        [
          "unmarked",
          "unmarked"
        ],
        [
          "police car",
          "police car"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK) An unmarked police car."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈnɒndɪskɹɪpt/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/nɑndəsˈkɹɪpt/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/En-us-nondescript.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
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  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
      "word": "non-descript"
    }
  ],
  "word": "nondescript"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English adjectives",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms prefixed with non-",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "From non- + descript.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more nondescript",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most nondescript",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with rare senses",
        "en:Biology"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Not described (in the academic literature)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "biology",
          "biology"
        ],
        [
          "described",
          "described"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(biology, now rare) Not described (in the academic literature)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "undescribed"
        },
        {
          "word": "unidentified"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "archaic"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
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        {
          "text": "He drove a nondescript silver sedan.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Second Cabin”, in The Amateur Emigrant",
          "text": "There was, besides, a Scots mason, known from his favourite dish as \"Irish Stew,\" three or four nondescript Scots, a fine young Irishman, O'Reilly, and a pair of young men who deserve a special word of condemnation.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1950 April, R. A. H. Weight, “They Passed by My Window”, in Railway Magazine, pages 258-259",
          "text": "In 1919, demobilisation specials from Purfleet, Essex, to the North, usually made up of nondescript, almost paintless or grey stock which had seen long wartime service, chalked with slogans, were worked through by way of Bromley and the North London line […].",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017 February 23, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The Onion AV Club",
          "text": "We open in a grimy, fluorescent-lit military base somewhere in rural England, where the girl from the poster, Melanie (Sennia Nanua), is the star student in a class full of children who are wheeled into school—or at least, the nondescript concrete room that serves as a school—with their arms, legs, and foreheads bound to their wheelchairs by leather straps.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Chippenham (1841)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 57",
          "text": "The plaque, of light-blue hue (a tone favoured by the Wiltshire market town's civic society), can be found on a nondescript structure just outside the station.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Without distinguishing qualities or characteristics."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "distinguish",
          "distinguish"
        ],
        [
          "qualities",
          "qualities"
        ],
        [
          "characteristic",
          "characteristic"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "nonstandard"
          ],
          "word": "undescript"
        },
        {
          "word": "unexceptional"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈnɒndɪskɹɪpt/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/nɑndəsˈkɹɪpt/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/En-us-nondescript.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "non-descript"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "biology: not described",
      "word": "tunnistamaton"
    },
    {
      "code": "bg",
      "lang": "Bulgarian",
      "roman": "neopredelen",
      "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
      "word": "неопределен"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
      "word": "mitäänsanomaton"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
      "word": "banal"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
      "word": "quelconque"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "without distinguishing qualities",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "indescriptivo"
    }
  ],
  "word": "nondescript"
}

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    "English adjectives",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
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        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "en:Biology"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1791, Thomas Paine, Rights of Man",
          "text": "Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical non-descript.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A species or other type of creature that has not been previously described or identified."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "biology",
          "biology"
        ],
        [
          "species",
          "species"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly biology) A species or other type of creature that has not been previously described or identified."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "An undistinguished, unexceptional person or thing."
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1970, Peter Laurie, Scotland Yard: a study of the Metropolitan Police, page 118",
          "text": "By a nice British compromise, the enforcement car — visible just then as a white spot on the television screen — has nothing externally to show its police affiliation, but unlike the CID's nondescripts, carries two large policemen in uniform.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unmarked police car."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "unmarked",
          "unmarked"
        ],
        [
          "police car",
          "police car"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK) An unmarked police car."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈnɒndɪskɹɪpt/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/nɑndəsˈkɹɪpt/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-nondescript.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/En-us-nondescript.ogg/En-us-nondescript.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/En-us-nondescript.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (US)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "non-descript"
    }
  ],
  "word": "nondescript"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.