"swallow the dictionary" meaning in All languages combined

See swallow the dictionary on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Forms: swallows the dictionary [present, singular, third-person], swallowing the dictionary [participle, present], swallowed the dictionary [participle, past], swallowed the dictionary [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} swallow the dictionary (third-person singular simple present swallows the dictionary, present participle swallowing the dictionary, simple past and past participle swallowed the dictionary)
  1. To speak using long or obscure words.
    Sense id: en-swallow_the_dictionary-en-verb-yixUqAi0 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "swallows the dictionary",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swallowing the dictionary",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swallowed the dictionary",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swallowed the dictionary",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "swallow the dictionary (third-person singular simple present swallows the dictionary, present participle swallowing the dictionary, simple past and past participle swallowed the dictionary)",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1918, The Saturday Evening Post - Volume 190, page 5",
          "text": "I swear, I don't know where you get all this swallowing the dictionary business!” - He himself never read anything but the ticker and the sporting news.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Adrian Furnham, Managing People in a Downturn",
          "text": "Knowledge is deposited in (virtual and real) libraries. People who “swallow” the dictionary are articulate, eloquent and verbally dextrous. They have a greater store of words. Knowledge is captured in books, which is why the number of books in a household contains an excellent index of the social class of that house.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Doris Lessing, African Stories, page 293",
          "text": "“You swallowed the dictionary?” said Mrs. Black, with an ingratiating smile.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Ray Simm, Hants Hills To Arctic Tundra, page 103",
          "text": "When I used a couple of words that an Uncle from the Boston States considered beyond my years, he asked me if I had swallowed the dictionary.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To speak using long or obscure words."
      ],
      "id": "en-swallow_the_dictionary-en-verb-yixUqAi0",
      "links": [
        [
          "speak",
          "speak"
        ],
        [
          "long",
          "long"
        ],
        [
          "obscure",
          "obscure"
        ],
        [
          "word",
          "word"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "swallow the dictionary"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "swallows the dictionary",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swallowing the dictionary",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swallowed the dictionary",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swallowed the dictionary",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "swallow the dictionary (third-person singular simple present swallows the dictionary, present participle swallowing the dictionary, simple past and past participle swallowed the dictionary)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1918, The Saturday Evening Post - Volume 190, page 5",
          "text": "I swear, I don't know where you get all this swallowing the dictionary business!” - He himself never read anything but the ticker and the sporting news.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Adrian Furnham, Managing People in a Downturn",
          "text": "Knowledge is deposited in (virtual and real) libraries. People who “swallow” the dictionary are articulate, eloquent and verbally dextrous. They have a greater store of words. Knowledge is captured in books, which is why the number of books in a household contains an excellent index of the social class of that house.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Doris Lessing, African Stories, page 293",
          "text": "“You swallowed the dictionary?” said Mrs. Black, with an ingratiating smile.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Ray Simm, Hants Hills To Arctic Tundra, page 103",
          "text": "When I used a couple of words that an Uncle from the Boston States considered beyond my years, he asked me if I had swallowed the dictionary.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To speak using long or obscure words."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "speak",
          "speak"
        ],
        [
          "long",
          "long"
        ],
        [
          "obscure",
          "obscure"
        ],
        [
          "word",
          "word"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "swallow the dictionary"
}

Download raw JSONL data for swallow the dictionary meaning in All languages combined (2.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-09-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-08-20 using wiktextract (8e41825 and f99c758). 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.