"play first fiddle" meaning in All languages combined

See play first fiddle on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: En-au-play first fiddle.ogg Forms: plays first fiddle [present, singular, third-person], playing first fiddle [participle, present], played first fiddle [participle, past], played first fiddle [past]
Etymology: From the first violin in an orchestra. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} play first fiddle (third-person singular simple present plays first fiddle, present participle playing first fiddle, simple past and past participle played first fiddle)
  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To play a leading role. Tags: idiomatic, intransitive Related terms: play second fiddle
    Sense id: en-play_first_fiddle-en-verb-J1I1Q4Ko Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "From the first violin in an orchestra.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plays first fiddle",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "playing first fiddle",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played first fiddle",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played first fiddle",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "play first fiddle (third-person singular simple present plays first fiddle, present participle playing first fiddle, simple past and past participle played first fiddle)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "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"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To play a leading role."
      ],
      "id": "en-play_first_fiddle-en-verb-J1I1Q4Ko",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, intransitive) To play a leading role."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "play second fiddle"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-play first fiddle.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/69/En-au-play_first_fiddle.ogg/En-au-play_first_fiddle.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/En-au-play_first_fiddle.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "play first fiddle"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "From the first violin in an orchestra.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plays first fiddle",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "playing first fiddle",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played first fiddle",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played first fiddle",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "play first fiddle (third-person singular simple present plays first fiddle, present participle playing first fiddle, simple past and past participle played first fiddle)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "play second fiddle"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To play a leading role."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, intransitive) To play a leading role."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-play first fiddle.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/69/En-au-play_first_fiddle.ogg/En-au-play_first_fiddle.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/En-au-play_first_fiddle.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "play first fiddle"
}

Download raw JSONL data for play first fiddle 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 2025-02-17 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-02 using wiktextract (ca09fec and c40eb85). 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.