"Tom Swifty" meaning in English

See Tom Swifty in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˌtɒm ˈswɪft.iː/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˌtɔːm ˈswɪft.iː/ (note: Received Pronunciation, older), /ˌtɔm ˈswɪft.i/ [General-American, Scotland], /ˌtɑm ˈswɪft.i/ [General-American, cot-caught-merger], /ˌtɒm ˈswɪft.i/ [Canada], /ˌtɑm ˈswɪft.i/ [Canada, cot-caught-merger], /ˌtɔm ˈswɪft.iː/ [General-Australian], /ˌtɒm ˈswəft.iː/ [New-Zealand], /ˌʈɔm ˈswɪfʈ.iː/ [India] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-Tom Swifty.wav Forms: Tom Swifties [plural], Tom Swiftie [alternative]
enPR: tŏm′ swĭft′ē Etymology: Referring to the Tom Swift series of books, whose authors frequently avoided the word "said" in favour of other constructions, + -y. Etymology templates: {{suffix|en||y}} + -y Head templates: {{en-noun|nolink=1}} Tom Swifty (plural Tom Swifties)
  1. A humorous phrase in which a supposed quotation is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed. Wikidata QID: Q4844059 Wikipedia link: Tom Swift Related terms: elegant variation, Wellerism, wrylie

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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        "1": "en",
        "2": "",
        "3": "y"
      },
      "expansion": "+ -y",
      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Referring to the Tom Swift series of books, whose authors frequently avoided the word \"said\" in favour of other constructions, + -y.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Tom Swifties",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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    },
    {
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
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      "expansion": "Tom Swifty (plural Tom Swifties)",
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  "pos": "noun",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -y",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
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          "source": "w"
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          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              15,
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            ],
            [
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              209
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          ],
          "ref": "2008, Ben Yagoda, When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It, Crown, →ISBN, page 50:",
          "text": "Since then the Tom Swifty has trudged on, not exactly swiftly but with an impressive staying power. You can find Web sites that list as many as nine hundred of them. As the above examples suggest, Tom Swifties are virtually never funny, but they illustrate an adverb-centered sin against writing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A humorous phrase in which a supposed quotation is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed."
      ],
      "id": "en-Tom_Swifty-en-noun-en:Q4844059",
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      "related": [
        {
          "word": "elegant variation"
        },
        {
          "word": "Wellerism"
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          "word": "wrylie"
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      "senseid": [
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  "sounds": [
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      "enpr": "tŏm′ swĭft′ē"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɒm ˈswɪft.iː/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɔːm ˈswɪft.iː/",
      "note": "Received Pronunciation, older"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɔm ˈswɪft.i/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Scotland"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-Tom Swifty.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b1/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_%28NaomiAmethyst%29-Tom_Swifty.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_%28NaomiAmethyst%29-Tom_Swifty.wav.mp3",
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    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɑm ˈswɪft.i/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "cot-caught-merger"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɒm ˈswɪft.i/",
      "tags": [
        "Canada"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɑm ˈswɪft.i/",
      "tags": [
        "Canada",
        "cot-caught-merger"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɔm ˈswɪft.iː/",
      "tags": [
        "General-Australian"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɒm ˈswəft.iː/",
      "tags": [
        "New-Zealand"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌʈɔm ˈswɪfʈ.iː/",
      "tags": [
        "India"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "Tom Swifty"
}
{
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        "2": "",
        "3": "y"
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      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
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  "forms": [
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      "form": "Tom Swifties",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "Tom Swiftie",
      "tags": [
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      ]
    }
  ],
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        "Tom Swift",
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  "pos": "noun",
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      "word": "elegant variation"
    },
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      "word": "Wellerism"
    },
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      "word": "wrylie"
    }
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English eponyms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
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        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
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              15,
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            ],
            [
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            ]
          ],
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          "text": "Since then the Tom Swifty has trudged on, not exactly swiftly but with an impressive staying power. You can find Web sites that list as many as nine hundred of them. As the above examples suggest, Tom Swifties are virtually never funny, but they illustrate an adverb-centered sin against writing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "A humorous phrase in which a supposed quotation is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed."
      ],
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    {
      "enpr": "tŏm′ swĭft′ē"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɒm ˈswɪft.iː/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɔːm ˈswɪft.iː/",
      "note": "Received Pronunciation, older"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɔm ˈswɪft.i/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Scotland"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-Tom Swifty.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b1/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_%28NaomiAmethyst%29-Tom_Swifty.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_%28NaomiAmethyst%29-Tom_Swifty.wav.mp3",
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    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɑm ˈswɪft.i/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
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      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɒm ˈswɪft.i/",
      "tags": [
        "Canada"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɑm ˈswɪft.i/",
      "tags": [
        "Canada",
        "cot-caught-merger"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɔm ˈswɪft.iː/",
      "tags": [
        "General-Australian"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌtɒm ˈswəft.iː/",
      "tags": [
        "New-Zealand"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌʈɔm ˈswɪfʈ.iː/",
      "tags": [
        "India"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "Tom Swifty"
}

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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 2025-12-31 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-20 using wiktextract (e97c820 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.