"May game" meaning in English

See May game in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: May games [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} May game (plural May games)
  1. (now chiefly historical) An entertainment held as part of the spring celebrations in May, especially on May Day. Tags: historical
    Sense id: en-May_game-en-noun-d4Q-HGpi Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 54 46 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 55 45 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 63 37
  2. (now chiefly Somerset, Devon, Cornwall) An object of ridicule; a laughingstock. Tags: Cornwall, Devon
    Sense id: en-May_game-en-noun-yeex7W3A Categories (other): Cornish English, Devonian English, Somerset English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 54 46 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 55 45

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "May games",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "May game (plural May games)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "from 16th c.",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "54 46",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "55 45",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "63 37",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An entertainment held as part of the spring celebrations in May, especially on May Day."
      ],
      "id": "en-May_game-en-noun-d4Q-HGpi",
      "links": [
        [
          "entertainment",
          "entertainment"
        ],
        [
          "spring",
          "spring"
        ],
        [
          "May",
          "May"
        ],
        [
          "May Day",
          "May Day"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(now chiefly historical) An entertainment held as part of the spring celebrations in May, especially on May Day."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ]
    },
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "from 16th c.",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Cornish English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Devonian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Somerset English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "54 46",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "55 45",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              56,
              64
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 40, page 279:",
          "text": "Ah my deare Lord, what ſight is this (quoth ſhe) / What May-game hath misfortune made of you?",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An object of ridicule; a laughingstock."
      ],
      "id": "en-May_game-en-noun-yeex7W3A",
      "links": [
        [
          "ridicule",
          "ridicule"
        ],
        [
          "laughingstock",
          "laughingstock"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "now chiefly Somerset",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(now chiefly Somerset, Devon, Cornwall) An object of ridicule; a laughingstock."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Cornwall",
        "Devon"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "May game"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "May games",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "May game (plural May games)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "from 16th c.",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English terms with historical senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An entertainment held as part of the spring celebrations in May, especially on May Day."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "entertainment",
          "entertainment"
        ],
        [
          "spring",
          "spring"
        ],
        [
          "May",
          "May"
        ],
        [
          "May Day",
          "May Day"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(now chiefly historical) An entertainment held as part of the spring celebrations in May, especially on May Day."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ]
    },
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "from 16th c.",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "Cornish English",
        "Devonian English",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Somerset English"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              56,
              64
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 40, page 279:",
          "text": "Ah my deare Lord, what ſight is this (quoth ſhe) / What May-game hath misfortune made of you?",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An object of ridicule; a laughingstock."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "ridicule",
          "ridicule"
        ],
        [
          "laughingstock",
          "laughingstock"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "now chiefly Somerset",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(now chiefly Somerset, Devon, Cornwall) An object of ridicule; a laughingstock."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Cornwall",
        "Devon"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "May game"
}

Download raw JSONL data for May game meaning in English (1.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-02 using wiktextract (e2469cc and 9905b1f). 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.