"why on Earth" meaning in All languages combined

See why on Earth on Wiktionary

Interjection [English]

Audio: En-au-why on Earth.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|interjection|head=why on Earth?}} why on Earth?
  1. (idiomatic) used to add emphasis to "why" when beginning a question. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: why in the world, why the dickens [euphemistic], why in God's name (english: profane), why the Devil [mildly, vulgar], why the fuck [slang, vulgar]
    Sense id: en-why_on_Earth-en-intj-yUuOW4sW Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for why on Earth meaning in All languages combined (1.3kB)

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        "2": "interjection",
        "head": "why on Earth?"
      },
      "expansion": "why on Earth?",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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      "examples": [
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          "text": "Why on Earth are you pouring vinegar in your drink?",
          "type": "example"
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        "used to add emphasis to \"why\" when beginning a question."
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      "id": "en-why_on_Earth-en-intj-yUuOW4sW",
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        "(idiomatic) used to add emphasis to \"why\" when beginning a question."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "why in the world"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "euphemistic"
          ],
          "word": "why the dickens"
        },
        {
          "english": "profane",
          "word": "why in God's name"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "mildly",
            "vulgar"
          ],
          "word": "why the Devil"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "slang",
            "vulgar"
          ],
          "word": "why the fuck"
        }
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  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "En-au-why on Earth.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/57/En-au-why_on_Earth.ogg/En-au-why_on_Earth.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/En-au-why_on_Earth.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
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  "word": "why on Earth"
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        "(idiomatic) used to add emphasis to \"why\" when beginning a question."
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      "word": "why in the world"
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      "tags": [
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      "word": "why the dickens"
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      "english": "profane",
      "word": "why in God's name"
    },
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      "tags": [
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      "word": "why the Devil"
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      "tags": [
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      ],
      "word": "why the fuck"
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  ],
  "word": "why on Earth"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). 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.