"Lake Wobegon" meaning in English

See Lake Wobegon in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Etymology: Coined by American radio personality Garrison Keillor in 1976, from lake + woebegone, but explained as derived from an Ojibwe word with the meaning "the place where we waited all day in the rain [for you].". Etymology templates: {{coin|en|Garrison Keillor|in=1976|nat=American|nobycat=1|occ=radio personality}} Coined by American radio personality Garrison Keillor in 1976, {{af|en|lake|woebegone}} lake + woebegone, {{der|en|oj|-|nocat=1}} Ojibwe Head templates: {{en-proper noun|head=Lake Wobegon}} Lake Wobegon
  1. (US) A fictional place in the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average”. Serves as a proxy for the American small town, particularly the American small town of the Upper Midwest. Tags: US Categories (topical): Fictional locations Derived forms: Lake Wobegon effect

Download JSON data for Lake Wobegon meaning in English (2.9kB)

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          "text": "I put Lake Wobegon (pop. 942) on the western shore of the lake, for the beautiful sunrises. I said it took its name from an Ojibway word that means “the place where we waited all day for you in the rain,” and its slogan was “Sumus quod sumus” (We are who we are), […]",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 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.

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