See a bad penny always turns up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for a bad penny always turns up meaning in English (3.6kB)
{
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "proverb",
"head": "a bad penny always turns up"
},
"expansion": "a bad penny always turns up",
"name": "head"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "a bad penny always turns up"
},
"expansion": "a bad penny always turns up",
"name": "en-proverb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "proverb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "58 42",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "78 22",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English proverbs",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1952, Ralph Morris Goldman, “The Money-Changers at the Ballot Box: A Study of Republican Election Buying,”, in The Future Catches Up, Vol. 2, published 2002, page 89",
"text": "It has been wisely said: “A bad penny always turns up again.” . . . Merwin K. Hart turns up again and again. And the Money-Changers of the Republican Party have knowingly sought to profit from Hart's lobby activities.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1989, Jeffrey Boam (author of screenplay), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, (excerpts at wikiquote)",
"text": "Elsa Schneider: I never expected to see you again.\nIndiana Jones: I'm like a bad penny. I always turn up."
},
{
"ref": "2005, Ron Greer and Mike Wicks, Fire from the Sky: A diary over Japan (2013 iUniverse edition), p. 184 (Google preview)",
"text": "Being superstitious was common among a lot of the military. . . . Aircraft were given names such as The Bad Penny (as in a bad penny always turns up)."
},
{
"ref": "2011, Gail Bowen, The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn",
"text": "I had managed to avoid Julie for almost four years, but, as my grandmother used to say, the bad penny always turns up, and Julie Evanson was one very bad penny.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person or thing which is unpleasant, dishonorable, or unwanted tends to appear (or reappear), especially at inopportune times."
],
"id": "en-a_bad_penny_always_turns_up-en-proverb-XSm3dHwz",
"links": [
[
"unpleasant",
"unpleasant"
],
[
"dishonorable",
"dishonorable"
],
[
"unwanted",
"unwanted"
],
[
"inopportune",
"inopportune"
]
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "65 35",
"word": "bad penny"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "59 41",
"word": "a bad penny always comes back"
},
{
"_dis1": "59 41",
"word": "the bad penny always comes back"
},
{
"_dis1": "59 41",
"word": "the bad penny always turns up"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"word": "mikäs se pahan tappaisi"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"word": "rossz pénz nem vész el"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"word": "l'erba cattiva non muore mai"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"word": "chi scava una fossa vi cade dentro"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "licho nie śpi"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "diabeł nie śpi"
},
{
"_dis1": "84 16",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "złe nie śpi"
}
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"Things that are done improperly eventually cause problems."
],
"id": "en-a_bad_penny_always_turns_up-en-proverb--g4liUGI"
}
],
"word": "a bad penny always turns up"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English proverbs"
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "proverb",
"head": "a bad penny always turns up"
},
"expansion": "a bad penny always turns up",
"name": "head"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "a bad penny always turns up"
},
"expansion": "a bad penny always turns up",
"name": "en-proverb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "proverb",
"related": [
{
"word": "bad penny"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1952, Ralph Morris Goldman, “The Money-Changers at the Ballot Box: A Study of Republican Election Buying,”, in The Future Catches Up, Vol. 2, published 2002, page 89",
"text": "It has been wisely said: “A bad penny always turns up again.” . . . Merwin K. Hart turns up again and again. And the Money-Changers of the Republican Party have knowingly sought to profit from Hart's lobby activities.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1989, Jeffrey Boam (author of screenplay), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, (excerpts at wikiquote)",
"text": "Elsa Schneider: I never expected to see you again.\nIndiana Jones: I'm like a bad penny. I always turn up."
},
{
"ref": "2005, Ron Greer and Mike Wicks, Fire from the Sky: A diary over Japan (2013 iUniverse edition), p. 184 (Google preview)",
"text": "Being superstitious was common among a lot of the military. . . . Aircraft were given names such as The Bad Penny (as in a bad penny always turns up)."
},
{
"ref": "2011, Gail Bowen, The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn",
"text": "I had managed to avoid Julie for almost four years, but, as my grandmother used to say, the bad penny always turns up, and Julie Evanson was one very bad penny.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person or thing which is unpleasant, dishonorable, or unwanted tends to appear (or reappear), especially at inopportune times."
],
"links": [
[
"unpleasant",
"unpleasant"
],
[
"dishonorable",
"dishonorable"
],
[
"unwanted",
"unwanted"
],
[
"inopportune",
"inopportune"
]
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"Things that are done improperly eventually cause problems."
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "a bad penny always comes back"
},
{
"word": "the bad penny always comes back"
},
{
"word": "the bad penny always turns up"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"word": "mikäs se pahan tappaisi"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"word": "rossz pénz nem vész el"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"word": "l'erba cattiva non muore mai"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"word": "chi scava una fossa vi cade dentro"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "licho nie śpi"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "diabeł nie śpi"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "unwanted person or thing reappears",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "złe nie śpi"
}
],
"word": "a bad penny always turns up"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.