"alien space bats" meaning in English

See alien space bats in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: Coined in the Usenet newsgroup soc.history.what-if. Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} alien space bats pl (plural only)
  1. (fandom slang) An implausible point of divergence from reality, used as a plot device in alternate history. Tags: plural, plural-only, slang Categories (topical): Alternate history, Celestial inhabitants, Narratology, Stock characters Synonyms: ASB
    Sense id: en-alien_space_bats-en-noun-Ol1BvYK3 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum Topics: lifestyle

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for alien space bats meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined in the Usenet newsgroup soc.history.what-if.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "alien space bats pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English pluralia tantum",
          "parents": [
            "Pluralia tantum",
            "Nouns",
            "Lemmas"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Alternate history",
          "orig": "en:Alternate history",
          "parents": [
            "History",
            "Speculative fiction",
            "All topics",
            "Fiction",
            "Genres",
            "Fundamental",
            "Artistic works",
            "Entertainment",
            "Art",
            "Culture",
            "Society"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Celestial inhabitants",
          "orig": "en:Celestial inhabitants",
          "parents": [
            "Demonyms",
            "Fictional characters",
            "Science fiction",
            "Names",
            "People",
            "Fiction",
            "Speculative fiction",
            "All topics",
            "Proper nouns",
            "Terms by semantic function",
            "Human",
            "Artistic works",
            "Genres",
            "Fundamental",
            "Nouns",
            "Art",
            "Entertainment",
            "Lemmas",
            "Culture",
            "Society"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Narratology",
          "orig": "en:Narratology",
          "parents": [
            "Drama",
            "Literature",
            "Theater",
            "Culture",
            "Entertainment",
            "Writing",
            "Art",
            "Society",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Language",
            "All topics",
            "Human",
            "Communication",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Stock characters",
          "orig": "en:Stock characters",
          "parents": [
            "Fictional characters",
            "Fiction",
            "Artistic works",
            "Art",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An implausible point of divergence from reality, used as a plot device in alternate history."
      ],
      "id": "en-alien_space_bats-en-noun-Ol1BvYK3",
      "links": [
        [
          "fandom",
          "fandom"
        ],
        [
          "slang",
          "slang"
        ],
        [
          "implausible",
          "implausible"
        ],
        [
          "divergence",
          "divergence"
        ],
        [
          "reality",
          "reality"
        ],
        [
          "plot device",
          "plot device"
        ],
        [
          "alternate history",
          "alternate history"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(fandom slang) An implausible point of divergence from reality, used as a plot device in alternate history."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "ASB"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only",
        "slang"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "lifestyle"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "alien space bats"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Coined in the Usenet newsgroup soc.history.what-if.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
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      "expansion": "alien space bats pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English fandom slang",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English pluralia tantum",
        "en:Alternate history",
        "en:Celestial inhabitants",
        "en:Narratology",
        "en:Stock characters"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An implausible point of divergence from reality, used as a plot device in alternate history."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "fandom",
          "fandom"
        ],
        [
          "slang",
          "slang"
        ],
        [
          "implausible",
          "implausible"
        ],
        [
          "divergence",
          "divergence"
        ],
        [
          "reality",
          "reality"
        ],
        [
          "plot device",
          "plot device"
        ],
        [
          "alternate history",
          "alternate history"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(fandom slang) An implausible point of divergence from reality, used as a plot device in alternate history."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only",
        "slang"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "lifestyle"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "ASB"
    }
  ],
  "word": "alien space bats"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.