See not touch with a barge pole on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Probably derived from the barge poles that bargemen used to fend off wharfs and other boats.",
"head_templates": [
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"head": "not touch (something) with a barge pole"
},
"expansion": "not touch (something) with a barge pole",
"name": "head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "British English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
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{
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],
"glosses": [
"To avoid something at all costs; to refuse to associate with something; (signifies a strong aversion)."
],
"id": "en-not_touch_with_a_barge_pole-en-verb-i-YeLZ8Y",
"links": [
[
"avoid",
"avoid"
],
[
"refuse",
"refuse"
],
[
"associate",
"associate"
],
[
"aversion",
"aversion"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, UK) To avoid something at all costs; to refuse to associate with something; (signifies a strong aversion)."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "not be caught dead"
},
{
"word": "over my dead body"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "not touch something with a ten-foot pole"
}
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-not touch something with a barge pole.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4c/En-au-not_touch_something_with_a_barge_pole.ogg/En-au-not_touch_something_with_a_barge_pole.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/En-au-not_touch_something_with_a_barge_pole.ogg"
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],
"word": "not touch with a barge pole"
}
{
"etymology_text": "Probably derived from the barge poles that bargemen used to fend off wharfs and other boats.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "phrase",
"head": "not touch (something) with a barge pole"
},
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"name": "head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "not be caught dead"
},
{
"word": "over my dead body"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"British English",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English negative polarity items",
"English phrases",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"glosses": [
"To avoid something at all costs; to refuse to associate with something; (signifies a strong aversion)."
],
"links": [
[
"avoid",
"avoid"
],
[
"refuse",
"refuse"
],
[
"associate",
"associate"
],
[
"aversion",
"aversion"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, UK) To avoid something at all costs; to refuse to associate with something; (signifies a strong aversion)."
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-not touch something with a barge pole.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4c/En-au-not_touch_something_with_a_barge_pole.ogg/En-au-not_touch_something_with_a_barge_pole.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/En-au-not_touch_something_with_a_barge_pole.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "not touch something with a ten-foot pole"
}
],
"word": "not touch with a barge pole"
}
Download raw JSONL data for not touch with a barge pole meaning in All languages combined (1.5kB)
{
"called_from": "form_descriptions/1698",
"msg": "unrecognized head form: something",
"path": [
"not touch with a barge pole"
],
"section": "English",
"subsection": "verb",
"title": "not touch with a barge pole",
"trace": ""
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-02 using wiktextract (f90d964 and 9dbd323). 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.