See answer the call of nature in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From answer the call + call of nature in reference to a need to urinate or defecate.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "answers the call of nature",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "answering the call of nature",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "answered the call of nature",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "answered the call of nature",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*",
"head": "answer the call of nature"
},
"expansion": "answer the call of nature (third-person singular simple present answers the call of nature, present participle answering the call of nature, simple past and past participle answered the call of nature)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English euphemisms",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Bodily functions",
"orig": "en:Bodily functions",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
191,
216
]
],
"ref": "1978 April 18, Charles Lynch, “Trudeau struts and frets”, in Ottawa Citizen, Canada, retrieved 2010-09-03, page 7:",
"text": "Che [Guevara] jumped from his seat and rushed from the room, pursued by the entire press corps. Down the hall he went, and into the men's room where, surrounded by reporters, he proceeded to answer the call of nature, shouting: \"Liberdad!\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
62,
87
]
],
"ref": "2007 July 24, “Europe's Highest Toilets Installed on Mont Blanc”, in Spiegel Online International, retrieved 2010-09-03:",
"text": "Unfortunately mountain climbers, like everybody else, need to answer the call of nature, and there are few toilet facilities on mountains.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To satisfy a bodily urge to urinate or defecate."
],
"id": "en-answer_the_call_of_nature-en-verb-PMHp91oz",
"links": [
[
"satisfy",
"satisfy"
],
[
"bodily",
"bodily"
],
[
"urge",
"urge"
],
[
"urinate",
"urinate"
],
[
"defecate",
"defecate"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, euphemistic) To satisfy a bodily urge to urinate or defecate."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "find a friendly bush"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "defecate and Thesaurus:urinate"
}
],
"tags": [
"euphemistic",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-answer the call of nature.wav",
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}
],
"word": "answer the call of nature"
}
{
"etymology_text": "From answer the call + call of nature in reference to a need to urinate or defecate.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "answers the call of nature",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "answering the call of nature",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "answered the call of nature",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "answered the call of nature",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*",
"head": "answer the call of nature"
},
"expansion": "answer the call of nature (third-person singular simple present answers the call of nature, present participle answering the call of nature, simple past and past participle answered the call of nature)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "find a friendly bush"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English euphemisms",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"en:Bodily functions"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
191,
216
]
],
"ref": "1978 April 18, Charles Lynch, “Trudeau struts and frets”, in Ottawa Citizen, Canada, retrieved 2010-09-03, page 7:",
"text": "Che [Guevara] jumped from his seat and rushed from the room, pursued by the entire press corps. Down the hall he went, and into the men's room where, surrounded by reporters, he proceeded to answer the call of nature, shouting: \"Liberdad!\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
62,
87
]
],
"ref": "2007 July 24, “Europe's Highest Toilets Installed on Mont Blanc”, in Spiegel Online International, retrieved 2010-09-03:",
"text": "Unfortunately mountain climbers, like everybody else, need to answer the call of nature, and there are few toilet facilities on mountains.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To satisfy a bodily urge to urinate or defecate."
],
"links": [
[
"satisfy",
"satisfy"
],
[
"bodily",
"bodily"
],
[
"urge",
"urge"
],
[
"urinate",
"urinate"
],
[
"defecate",
"defecate"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, euphemistic) To satisfy a bodily urge to urinate or defecate."
],
"tags": [
"euphemistic",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-answer the call of nature.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/99/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-answer_the_call_of_nature.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-answer_the_call_of_nature.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/99/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-answer_the_call_of_nature.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-answer_the_call_of_nature.wav.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "defecate and Thesaurus:urinate"
}
],
"word": "answer the call of nature"
}
Download raw JSONL data for answer the call of nature meaning in English (2.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-01 using wiktextract (142890b and 1d3fdbf). 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.