"talk to a brick wall" meaning in All languages combined

See talk to a brick wall on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Forms: talks to a brick wall [present, singular, third-person], talking to a brick wall [participle, present], talked to a brick wall [participle, past], talked to a brick wall [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} talk to a brick wall (third-person singular simple present talks to a brick wall, present participle talking to a brick wall, simple past and past participle talked to a brick wall)
  1. (idiomatic, colloquial) To be completely ignored or disregarded by someone, as if speaking to an inanimate object. Tags: colloquial, idiomatic Categories (topical): Bricks, Talking Related terms: like talking to a brick wall Translations (Translations): 對牛彈琴 (Chinese), kaikua kuuroille korville (note: subject is the thing that is ignored or disregarded) (Finnish), parler à un mur (French), gegen eine Wand reden (German), mówić jak do ściany [imperfective] (Polish), vorbi cu pereții (Romanian), vorbi singur (Romanian)
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    {
      "form": "talks to a brick wall",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talking to a brick wall",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talked to a brick wall",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talked to a brick wall",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "talk to a brick wall (third-person singular simple present talks to a brick wall, present participle talking to a brick wall, simple past and past participle talked to a brick wall)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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        },
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        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Bricks",
          "orig": "en:Bricks",
          "parents": [
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            "Construction",
            "Materials",
            "Architecture",
            "Engineering",
            "Manufacturing",
            "Applied sciences",
            "Art",
            "Technology",
            "Human activity",
            "Sciences",
            "Culture",
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            "Human behaviour",
            "Society",
            "Fundamental",
            "Human"
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        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Talking",
          "orig": "en:Talking",
          "parents": [
            "Human behaviour",
            "Language",
            "Human",
            "Communication",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
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        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be completely ignored or disregarded by someone, as if speaking to an inanimate object."
      ],
      "id": "en-talk_to_a_brick_wall-en-verb-oJnQFCgz",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, colloquial) To be completely ignored or disregarded by someone, as if speaking to an inanimate object."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "like talking to a brick wall"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "zh",
          "lang": "Chinese",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "對牛彈琴"
        },
        {
          "code": "zh",
          "lang": "Chinese",
          "note": "对牛弹琴 (duìniútánqín, literally “to play the guqin to a cow”)",
          "sense": "Translations"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "note": "subject is the thing that is ignored or disregarded",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "kaikua kuuroille korville"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "parler à un mur"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "gegen eine Wand reden"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "mówić jak do ściany"
        },
        {
          "code": "ro",
          "lang": "Romanian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "vorbi cu pereții"
        },
        {
          "code": "ro",
          "lang": "Romanian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "vorbi singur"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "talk to a brick wall"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "talks to a brick wall",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talking to a brick wall",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talked to a brick wall",
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        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "talked to a brick wall",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
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      "expansion": "talk to a brick wall (third-person singular simple present talks to a brick wall, present participle talking to a brick wall, simple past and past participle talked to a brick wall)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "like talking to a brick wall"
    }
  ],
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        "Terms with Chinese translations",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
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        "Terms with Polish translations",
        "Terms with Romanian translations",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss",
        "en:Bricks",
        "en:Talking"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be completely ignored or disregarded by someone, as if speaking to an inanimate object."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, colloquial) To be completely ignored or disregarded by someone, as if speaking to an inanimate object."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "zh",
      "lang": "Chinese",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "對牛彈琴"
    },
    {
      "code": "zh",
      "lang": "Chinese",
      "note": "对牛弹琴 (duìniútánqín, literally “to play the guqin to a cow”)",
      "sense": "Translations"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "note": "subject is the thing that is ignored or disregarded",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "kaikua kuuroille korville"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "parler à un mur"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "gegen eine Wand reden"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "mówić jak do ściany"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "vorbi cu pereții"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "vorbi singur"
    }
  ],
  "word": "talk to a brick wall"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.