"second banana" meaning in All languages combined

See second banana on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: En-au-second banana.ogg [Australia] Forms: second bananas [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} second banana (plural second bananas)
  1. (idiomatic) A comedian who plays a secondary or supporting role, especially as straight man and traditionally in vaudeville or burlesque theatre. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Comedy, Narratology, People
    Sense id: en-second_banana-en-noun-rxalo2GU Disambiguation of Comedy: 93 7 Disambiguation of Narratology: 94 6 Disambiguation of People: 64 36 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 60 40 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 71 29 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 75 25
  2. (idiomatic) A person who serves in a supporting, secondary, or subsidiary capacity; an assistant. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-second_banana-en-noun-5AOsXvz1
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: top banana, second fiddle

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for second banana meaning in All languages combined (3.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "second bananas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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    }
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "second banana (plural second bananas)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "top banana"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "second fiddle"
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  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "60 40",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "71 29",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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        {
          "_dis": "75 25",
          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "93 7",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Comedy",
          "orig": "en:Comedy",
          "parents": [
            "Drama",
            "Theater",
            "Art",
            "Entertainment",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Narratology",
          "orig": "en:Narratology",
          "parents": [
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            "Literature",
            "Theater",
            "Culture",
            "Entertainment",
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            "Society",
            "Human behaviour",
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            "Human",
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            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "64 36",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He grew disenchanted with playing second banana and never getting credit for the laughter."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A comedian who plays a secondary or supporting role, especially as straight man and traditionally in vaudeville or burlesque theatre."
      ],
      "id": "en-second_banana-en-noun-rxalo2GU",
      "links": [
        [
          "comedian",
          "comedian"
        ],
        [
          "secondary",
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        [
          "supporting",
          "supporting"
        ],
        [
          "straight man",
          "straight man"
        ],
        [
          "vaudeville",
          "vaudeville"
        ],
        [
          "burlesque",
          "burlesque"
        ],
        [
          "theatre",
          "theatre"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A comedian who plays a secondary or supporting role, especially as straight man and traditionally in vaudeville or burlesque theatre."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The plumber left his second banana behind, to finish installing my new sink."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 August 30, Michael Smyth, “The lifeboat is filling up”, in The Province",
          "text": "When you want to be the boss, but you can't, it's not a lot of fun to be second banana.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who serves in a supporting, secondary, or subsidiary capacity; an assistant."
      ],
      "id": "en-second_banana-en-noun-5AOsXvz1",
      "links": [
        [
          "subsidiary",
          "subsidiary"
        ],
        [
          "assistant",
          "assistant"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A person who serves in a supporting, secondary, or subsidiary capacity; an assistant."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-second banana.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b3/En-au-second_banana.ogg/En-au-second_banana.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/En-au-second_banana.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "second banana"
}
{
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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
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    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
    "en:Comedy",
    "en:Narratology",
    "en:People"
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "second bananas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
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  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "second banana (plural second bananas)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "top banana"
    },
    {
      "word": "second fiddle"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He grew disenchanted with playing second banana and never getting credit for the laughter."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A comedian who plays a secondary or supporting role, especially as straight man and traditionally in vaudeville or burlesque theatre."
      ],
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        [
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          "comedian"
        ],
        [
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        ],
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        ],
        [
          "straight man",
          "straight man"
        ],
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          "vaudeville",
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          "burlesque",
          "burlesque"
        ],
        [
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          "theatre"
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A comedian who plays a secondary or supporting role, especially as straight man and traditionally in vaudeville or burlesque theatre."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
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    {
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The plumber left his second banana behind, to finish installing my new sink."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 August 30, Michael Smyth, “The lifeboat is filling up”, in The Province",
          "text": "When you want to be the boss, but you can't, it's not a lot of fun to be second banana.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who serves in a supporting, secondary, or subsidiary capacity; an assistant."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "subsidiary",
          "subsidiary"
        ],
        [
          "assistant",
          "assistant"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A person who serves in a supporting, secondary, or subsidiary capacity; an assistant."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
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  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "En-au-second banana.ogg",
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/En-au-second_banana.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
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  "word": "second banana"
}

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.