"WD-40" meaning in English

See WD-40 in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Etymology: Trademark; an abbreviation of "Water Displacement, 40th formula" or "40th attempt" used by Norm Larson of the Rocket Chemical Company of California, the oil's developer. Head templates: {{en-proper noun}} WD-40
  1. A penetrating oil used as a universal solvent, a lubricant and to protect electric circuits from moisture. Categories (topical): Forty
    Sense id: en-WD-40-en-name-ahtLHWLk Disambiguation of Forty: 83 17 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English genericized trademarks, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 97 3 Disambiguation of English genericized trademarks: 94 6 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 91 9 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 94 6
  2. (idiomatic, by extension) Anything or anyone that has many different uses. Tags: broadly, idiomatic
    Sense id: en-WD-40-en-name-IqWxD2xA
{
  "etymology_text": "Trademark; an abbreviation of \"Water Displacement, 40th formula\" or \"40th attempt\" used by Norm Larson of the Rocket Chemical Company of California, the oil's developer.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "WD-40",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "97 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English genericized trademarks",
          "parents": [
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            "Terms by etymology",
            "Trademarks",
            "Terms by usage"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "91 9",
          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "83 17",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Forty",
          "orig": "en:Forty",
          "parents": [
            "Numbers",
            "All topics",
            "Terms by semantic function",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A penetrating oil used as a universal solvent, a lubricant and to protect electric circuits from moisture."
      ],
      "id": "en-WD-40-en-name-ahtLHWLk",
      "links": [
        [
          "penetrating oil",
          "penetrating oil"
        ],
        [
          "universal solvent",
          "universal solvent"
        ],
        [
          "lubricant",
          "lubricant"
        ],
        [
          "electric circuit",
          "electric circuit"
        ],
        [
          "moisture",
          "moisture"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "Anything or anyone that has many different uses."
      ],
      "id": "en-WD-40-en-name-IqWxD2xA",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, by extension) Anything or anyone that has many different uses."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "WD-40"
  ],
  "word": "WD-40"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English genericized trademarks",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English proper nouns",
    "English terms spelled with numbers",
    "English uncountable nouns",
    "English words without vowels",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:Forty"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Trademark; an abbreviation of \"Water Displacement, 40th formula\" or \"40th attempt\" used by Norm Larson of the Rocket Chemical Company of California, the oil's developer.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "WD-40",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A penetrating oil used as a universal solvent, a lubricant and to protect electric circuits from moisture."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "penetrating oil",
          "penetrating oil"
        ],
        [
          "universal solvent",
          "universal solvent"
        ],
        [
          "lubricant",
          "lubricant"
        ],
        [
          "electric circuit",
          "electric circuit"
        ],
        [
          "moisture",
          "moisture"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Anything or anyone that has many different uses."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, by extension) Anything or anyone that has many different uses."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "WD-40"
  ],
  "word": "WD-40"
}

Download raw JSONL data for WD-40 meaning in English (1.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (aeaf2a1 and fb63907). 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.