"Zelig" meaning in English

See Zelig in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈzɛlɪɡ/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation] Forms: Zeligs [plural]
Etymology: From the surname of the character Leonard Zelig from the 1983 film Zelig who meets many famous people in the 1920s and 1930s and, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of the strong personalities around him. Head templates: {{en-noun}} Zelig (plural Zeligs)
  1. An ordinary person who can change their appearance or behaviour to suit their surroundings, especially one who is unexpectedly associated with important events or people. Categories (topical): People Synonyms: chameleon
    Sense id: en-Zelig-en-noun-12YAVX3- Disambiguation of People: 82 18 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 52 48 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 47 53 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 47 53
  2. An unimportant person who appears at multiple important events.
    Sense id: en-Zelig-en-noun-ogtjWiA5 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 52 48 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 47 53 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 47 53
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Derived forms: Zeligesque, Zelig-like

Inflected forms

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "Zeligesque"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "Zelig-like"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From the surname of the character Leonard Zelig from the 1983 film Zelig who meets many famous people in the 1920s and 1930s and, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of the strong personalities around him.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Zeligs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Zelig (plural Zeligs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "Ze‧lig"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "52 48",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "82 18",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An ordinary person who can change their appearance or behaviour to suit their surroundings, especially one who is unexpectedly associated with important events or people."
      ],
      "id": "en-Zelig-en-noun-12YAVX3-",
      "links": [
        [
          "ordinary",
          "ordinary#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "person",
          "person#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "change",
          "change#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "appearance",
          "appearance"
        ],
        [
          "behaviour",
          "behavior#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "suit",
          "suit#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "surroundings",
          "surroundings"
        ],
        [
          "unexpectedly",
          "unexpectedly"
        ],
        [
          "associated",
          "associate#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "important",
          "important"
        ],
        [
          "events",
          "event#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "chameleon"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "52 48",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unimportant person who appears at multiple important events."
      ],
      "id": "en-Zelig-en-noun-ogtjWiA5",
      "links": [
        [
          "unimportant",
          "unimportant"
        ],
        [
          "appear",
          "appear"
        ],
        [
          "multiple",
          "multiple#Adjective"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈzɛlɪɡ/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Zelig"
  ],
  "word": "Zelig"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English eponyms",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms derived from fiction",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "en:People"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "Zeligesque"
    },
    {
      "word": "Zelig-like"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From the surname of the character Leonard Zelig from the 1983 film Zelig who meets many famous people in the 1920s and 1930s and, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of the strong personalities around him.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Zeligs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Zelig (plural Zeligs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "Ze‧lig"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "An ordinary person who can change their appearance or behaviour to suit their surroundings, especially one who is unexpectedly associated with important events or people."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "ordinary",
          "ordinary#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "person",
          "person#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "change",
          "change#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "appearance",
          "appearance"
        ],
        [
          "behaviour",
          "behavior#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "suit",
          "suit#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "surroundings",
          "surroundings"
        ],
        [
          "unexpectedly",
          "unexpectedly"
        ],
        [
          "associated",
          "associate#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "important",
          "important"
        ],
        [
          "events",
          "event#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "chameleon"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "An unimportant person who appears at multiple important events."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "unimportant",
          "unimportant"
        ],
        [
          "appear",
          "appear"
        ],
        [
          "multiple",
          "multiple#Adjective"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈzɛlɪɡ/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Zelig"
  ],
  "word": "Zelig"
}

Download raw JSONL data for Zelig 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 2024-09-22 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-09-20 using wiktextract (af5c55c and 66545a6). 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.