See the dickens on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "See dickens.",
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"word": "the dickens you say"
}
],
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{
"text": "Why the dickens did he do that?",
"type": "example"
},
{
"text": "It is cold as the dickens out here!",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 49, column 1:",
"text": "I cannot tell what the dickens his name / is that my husband had him of. What do you call your / knight's name, sirrah?",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter IV, in The Land That Time Forgot:",
"text": "\"That's it,\" I exclaimed, \"--that's just the taste exactly, though I haven't experienced it since boyhood; but how can water from a flowing stream, taste thus, and what the dickens makes it so warm? It must be at least 70 or 80 Fahrenheit, possibly higher.\"",
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],
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"Used as an intensifier."
],
"id": "en-the_dickens-en-adv-MyGozmhg",
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{
"word": "the devil"
},
{
"word": "the dickens"
}
]
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"word": "the dickens"
}
{
"etymology_text": "See dickens.",
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"text": "She can go to the dickens for what she said.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "2023 July 27, Max Brockman & Shana Gohd, “The Campaign” (8:49 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 5, episode 4, spoken by Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch):",
"text": "“Four weeks ago, I was sitting down for breakfast with my beautiful wife, Evie. Evie and I were sitting down with our two beautiful little boys, Connor and C-C-- Cah-- ristopher, and Christopher looks up to me-- he's six years old and full of the dickens--”",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see the, dickens; (euphemistic) the devil."
],
"id": "en-the_dickens-en-noun-ABab~3yP",
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"word": "Dickensian"
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"word": "the dickens"
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{
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"word": "damned"
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{
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"word": "completely"
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"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
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"word": "dafuq"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in damnation"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in God's name"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in heaven"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in heavens"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in heaven's name"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in hell"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in tarnation"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in the hell"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in the name of heaven"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in the world"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in thunderation"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "on God's green earth"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "on earth"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "Sam Hill"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the Sam Hill"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the blazes"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the bloody hell"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the Christ"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the deuce"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the devil"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the dick"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the dickens"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the flipping heck"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the fuck"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the fucking hell"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the heck"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the hell"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "the measles"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"tags": [
"slang"
],
"word": "the sigma"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"tags": [
"slang"
],
"word": "the skibidi"
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"word": "the dickens"
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{
"categories": [
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"English entries with incorrect language header",
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"English interjections",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
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"derived": [
{
"word": "the dickens you say"
}
],
"etymology_text": "See dickens.",
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{
"text": "Why the dickens did he do that?",
"type": "example"
},
{
"text": "It is cold as the dickens out here!",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 49, column 1:",
"text": "I cannot tell what the dickens his name / is that my husband had him of. What do you call your / knight's name, sirrah?",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter IV, in The Land That Time Forgot:",
"text": "\"That's it,\" I exclaimed, \"--that's just the taste exactly, though I haven't experienced it since boyhood; but how can water from a flowing stream, taste thus, and what the dickens makes it so warm? It must be at least 70 or 80 Fahrenheit, possibly higher.\"",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used as an intensifier."
],
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{
"word": "the devil"
},
{
"word": "the dickens"
}
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],
"word": "the dickens"
}
{
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"etymology_text": "See dickens.",
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{
"text": "She can go to the dickens for what she said.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "2023 July 27, Max Brockman & Shana Gohd, “The Campaign” (8:49 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 5, episode 4, spoken by Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch):",
"text": "“Four weeks ago, I was sitting down for breakfast with my beautiful wife, Evie. Evie and I were sitting down with our two beautiful little boys, Connor and C-C-- Cah-- ristopher, and Christopher looks up to me-- he's six years old and full of the dickens--”",
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"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see the, dickens; (euphemistic) the devil."
],
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"word": "the dickens"
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"word": "dafuq"
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"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in damnation"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in God's name"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in heaven"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in heavens"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in heaven's name"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in hell"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in tarnation"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in the hell"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in the name of heaven"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in the world"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "in thunderation"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "on God's green earth"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "Sam Hill"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the Sam Hill"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the blazes"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the bloody hell"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the Christ"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the deuce"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the devil"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the dick"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the dickens"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the flipping heck"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the fuck"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the fucking hell"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
"word": "the heck"
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"source": "Thesaurus:the dickens",
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}
Download raw JSONL data for the dickens meaning in All languages combined (5.4kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-02 using wiktextract (32c88e6 and 633533e). 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.