See a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From the Sherman Brothers' 1964 song \"A Spoonful of Sugar\".",
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"expansion": "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down",
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1999, Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning, Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 372:",
"text": "One is known as the \"sweetening parable,\" that is to say a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Thus, when the aim is to preach to the people, to guide them along the \"bitter,\" arduous path of upholding burdensome precepts and prohibitions, a tale can lighten the load, make the \"medicine\" easier \"to swallow.\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2001, Maureen Reagan, First Father, First Daughter: A Memoir, Little, Brown, →ISBN, page 319:",
"text": "It put some fun into the tedious business of preparing for a presidential debate. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, right?",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"text": "2004, John Hoover, How to Work for an Idiot: Survive & Thrive... Without Killing Your Boss, Career Press, →ISBN, page 11,\nIf a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, a barrel of laughs can wash down the big pills you might need to swallow."
}
],
"glosses": [
"An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant when a pleasant aspect is deliberately introduced."
],
"id": "en-a_spoonful_of_sugar_helps_the_medicine_go_down-en-proverb-rKL7eWCS",
"links": [
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"unpleasant",
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"situation",
"situation"
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"pleasant",
"pleasant"
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"aspect",
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"deliberately",
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"related": [
{
"word": "sugarcoat a bitter pill"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "lidt sukker i skeen, hvis din medicin er sur"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "een klein schepje suiker wordt een bittere pil zoet"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "lääkkeen karvaan sä sokerilla makeaksi saat"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "un morceau de sucre aide la médecine à couler"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "ein Löffelchen voll Zucker bittre Medizin versüßt"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "smá sykur hjálpar til við að halda lækninum frá"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "un poco di zucchero la pillola va giù"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "un poquito de azúcar toda purga endulzará"
},
{
"code": "vi",
"lang": "Vietnamese",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "trong cái rủi có cái may"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ə ˈspuːnfəl əv ˈʃʊɡə(ɹ)ˌhɛlps ðə ˈmɛdɪsɪn ɡoʊ ˌdaʊn/"
}
],
"word": "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down"
}
{
"etymology_text": "From the Sherman Brothers' 1964 song \"A Spoonful of Sugar\".",
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"expansion": "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down",
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"word": "sugarcoat a bitter pill"
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{
"ref": "1999, Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning, Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 372:",
"text": "One is known as the \"sweetening parable,\" that is to say a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Thus, when the aim is to preach to the people, to guide them along the \"bitter,\" arduous path of upholding burdensome precepts and prohibitions, a tale can lighten the load, make the \"medicine\" easier \"to swallow.\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2001, Maureen Reagan, First Father, First Daughter: A Memoir, Little, Brown, →ISBN, page 319:",
"text": "It put some fun into the tedious business of preparing for a presidential debate. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, right?",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"text": "2004, John Hoover, How to Work for an Idiot: Survive & Thrive... Without Killing Your Boss, Career Press, →ISBN, page 11,\nIf a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, a barrel of laughs can wash down the big pills you might need to swallow."
}
],
"glosses": [
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],
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"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ə ˈspuːnfəl əv ˈʃʊɡə(ɹ)ˌhɛlps ðə ˈmɛdɪsɪn ɡoʊ ˌdaʊn/"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "lidt sukker i skeen, hvis din medicin er sur"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "een klein schepje suiker wordt een bittere pil zoet"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "lääkkeen karvaan sä sokerilla makeaksi saat"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "un morceau de sucre aide la médecine à couler"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "ein Löffelchen voll Zucker bittre Medizin versüßt"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "smá sykur hjálpar til við að halda lækninum frá"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "un poco di zucchero la pillola va giù"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "un poquito de azúcar toda purga endulzará"
},
{
"code": "vi",
"lang": "Vietnamese",
"sense": "An otherwise unpleasant situation can be pleasant.",
"word": "trong cái rủi có cái may"
}
],
"word": "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down"
}
Download raw JSONL data for a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down meaning in English (3.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). 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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