"Frank Drebin" meaning in English

See Frank Drebin in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: Frank Drebins [plural]
Etymology: From the character from the Naked Gun series of movies. Head templates: {{en-noun}} Frank Drebin (plural Frank Drebins)
  1. An incompetent and buffonish police officer, especially one known for a deadpan affect. Wikipedia link: Naked Gun
    Sense id: en-Frank_Drebin-en-noun-L-L5N5IF Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Fictional characters
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  "forms": [
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          "ref": "2016 March 1, “Eight comedy presidents more insane than Donald Trump”, in Chortle, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026:",
          "text": "Lloyd Bridges plays the Frank Drebin of international politics, a war vet who never landed a plane successfully in his life",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
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          "ref": "2023 April 30, linkerjpatrick, “Funniest line of all.”, in reddit.com:",
          "text": "Worf has the best lines. He is the Frank Drebin of Trek",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              202,
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            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 August 12, Bill Clark, “Johnny English (2003)”, in From the Balcony, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026:",
          "text": "As I said above, the film’s quirky elements that work are due to Atkinson. Not only is he a very funny-looking man (I say that affectionately), but he is also the master of the straight face. He is the Frank Drebin of the Bond spoofs, if you will. It is the way in which Atkinson portrays English as a man who is surrounded in slapstick, yet does not know it that makes bits of this film really work.",
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          "ref": "2018 June 19, “poor guy”, in reddit.com, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026:",
          "text": "The Frank Drebin of EMTs...",
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          "ref": "2025 June 21, alanthetanuki, “Who is the worst captain in Starfleet history?”, in reddit.com, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026:",
          "text": "Braxton. The Frank Drebin of time cops.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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      "glosses": [
        "An incompetent and buffonish police officer, especially one known for a deadpan affect."
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          "ref": "2016 March 1, “Eight comedy presidents more insane than Donald Trump”, in Chortle, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026:",
          "text": "Lloyd Bridges plays the Frank Drebin of international politics, a war vet who never landed a plane successfully in his life",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              35,
              47
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 April 30, linkerjpatrick, “Funniest line of all.”, in reddit.com:",
          "text": "Worf has the best lines. He is the Frank Drebin of Trek",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              202,
              214
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 August 12, Bill Clark, “Johnny English (2003)”, in From the Balcony, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026:",
          "text": "As I said above, the film’s quirky elements that work are due to Atkinson. Not only is he a very funny-looking man (I say that affectionately), but he is also the master of the straight face. He is the Frank Drebin of the Bond spoofs, if you will. It is the way in which Atkinson portrays English as a man who is surrounded in slapstick, yet does not know it that makes bits of this film really work.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              4,
              16
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2018 June 19, “poor guy”, in reddit.com, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026:",
          "text": "The Frank Drebin of EMTs...",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
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            [
              13,
              25
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 June 21, alanthetanuki, “Who is the worst captain in Starfleet history?”, in reddit.com, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2026:",
          "text": "Braxton. The Frank Drebin of time cops.",
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        }
      ],
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        "An incompetent and buffonish police officer, especially one known for a deadpan affect."
      ],
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      ]
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}

Download raw JSONL data for Frank Drebin meaning in English (2.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). 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.