See you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear meaning in All languages combined (3.6kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "make a silk purse of a sow's ear"
},
"expansion": "make a silk purse of a sow's ear",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From make a silk purse of a sow's ear, with the common perception of swine as unrefined, dirty, or base creatures.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "proverb",
"head": "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear"
},
"expansion": "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear",
"name": "head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "proverb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English proverbs",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"glosses": [
"It is not possible to produce something refined, admirable, or valuable from something which is unrefined, unpleasant, or of little or no value."
],
"id": "en-you_can't_make_a_silk_purse_of_a_sow's_ear-en-proverb-gVJXz4Hz",
"links": [
[
"refined",
"refined"
],
[
"admirable",
"admirable"
],
[
"valuable",
"valuable"
],
[
"unpleasant",
"unpleasant"
]
],
"related": [
{
"word": "put lipstick on a pig"
},
{
"word": "cast pearls before swine"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "you can't polish a turd"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "af",
"lang": "Afrikaans",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "al dra 'n aap 'n goue ring, hy is en bly 'n lelike ding"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "al draagt een aap een gouden ring, het is en blijft een lelijk ding"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "ei paska punniten parane"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "roskasta ei saa kultaa"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "le singe est toujours singe, fût-il vêtu de pourpre"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "man kann aus einem Ackergaul kein Rennpferd machen"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "man kann aus einem Esel kein Rennpferd machen"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "ton gáidaro, óso kai na ton stolíseis, álogo den gínetai",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "τον γάιδαρο, όσο και να τον στολίσεις, άλογο δεν γίνεται"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"english": "even in Paris they cannot make rice from oats",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "i w Paryżu nie zrobią z owsa ryżu"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "ot osíny ne rodjátsja apelʹsíny",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "от оси́ны не родя́тся апельси́ны"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda"
}
]
}
],
"word": "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear"
}
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "make a silk purse of a sow's ear"
},
"expansion": "make a silk purse of a sow's ear",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From make a silk purse of a sow's ear, with the common perception of swine as unrefined, dirty, or base creatures.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "proverb",
"head": "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear"
},
"expansion": "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear",
"name": "head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "proverb",
"related": [
{
"word": "put lipstick on a pig"
},
{
"word": "cast pearls before swine"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English proverbs"
],
"glosses": [
"It is not possible to produce something refined, admirable, or valuable from something which is unrefined, unpleasant, or of little or no value."
],
"links": [
[
"refined",
"refined"
],
[
"admirable",
"admirable"
],
[
"valuable",
"valuable"
],
[
"unpleasant",
"unpleasant"
]
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "you can't polish a turd"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "af",
"lang": "Afrikaans",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "al dra 'n aap 'n goue ring, hy is en bly 'n lelike ding"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "al draagt een aap een gouden ring, het is en blijft een lelijk ding"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "ei paska punniten parane"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "roskasta ei saa kultaa"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "le singe est toujours singe, fût-il vêtu de pourpre"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "man kann aus einem Ackergaul kein Rennpferd machen"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "man kann aus einem Esel kein Rennpferd machen"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "ton gáidaro, óso kai na ton stolíseis, álogo den gínetai",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "τον γάιδαρο, όσο και να τον στολίσεις, άλογο δεν γίνεται"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"english": "even in Paris they cannot make rice from oats",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "i w Paryżu nie zrobią z owsa ryżu"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "ot osíny ne rodjátsja apelʹsíny",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "от оси́ны не родя́тся апельси́ны"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "it is not possible to produce something refined from something which is unrefined",
"word": "aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda"
}
],
"word": "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 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.