"arse about face" meaning in English

See arse about face in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: EN-AU ck1 arse about face.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} arse about face (not comparable)
  1. Placed or arranged the opposite way to the way it should be. Tags: Australia, Ireland, New-Zealand, UK, not-comparable, slang
    Sense id: en-arse_about_face-en-adj-y6HMras1
  2. Arranged in a confused or haphazard way; muddled. Tags: Australia, Ireland, New-Zealand, UK, not-comparable, slang
    Sense id: en-arse_about_face-en-adj-lu5awUyQ
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: arse-about-face, arse about front, arse about tip, arse about tit

Adverb

Audio: EN-AU ck1 arse about face.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{en-adv|-}} arse about face (not comparable)
  1. In a manner that is opposite to or the reverse of the way it should be, backwards. Tags: Australia, Ireland, New-Zealand, UK, not-comparable, slang
    Sense id: en-arse_about_face-en-adv-L-ZPoK0C Categories (other): Australian English, British English, English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys, New Zealand English Disambiguation of Australian English: 36 2 59 3 Disambiguation of British English: 29 14 44 12 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 36 2 61 1 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 34 3 60 4 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 31 4 60 5 Disambiguation of New Zealand English: 25 2 71 2
  2. In a confused or haphazard manner. Tags: Australia, Ireland, New-Zealand, UK, not-comparable, slang
    Sense id: en-arse_about_face-en-adv-nftPjVpR
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: arse-about-face, arse about front, arse about tip, arse about tit

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for arse about face meaning in English (6.1kB)

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  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "arse about face (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "No wonder it doesn't look right mate, you've got the whole thing arse about face."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Ian Sansom, The Truth About Babies: From A-Z, Granta, page 256",
          "text": "It’s absurd, topsy-turvy, arse-about-face. But shit, nonetheless, demands a reading, and vice versa.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Mick Lee, Scream If You Want To Go Faster, Authors On Line Ltd, page 78",
          "text": "Someone blows a hole in the head of the owner a couple of places along the Gap and nobody seems to give a shit. Fucking arse about face this fucking place.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Peter North, quoting an anonymous member of a local currency scheme, “Self-Analysis: Do Members see LETS as a Social Movement?”, in Alternative Currency Movements As A Challenge To Globalisation?: A Case Study of Manchester's Local Currency Networks, Ashgate Publishing, Part II Manchester's Alternative Currency Networks, page 99",
          "text": "Like we didn't move here for my job, we came here (for ...) to become a student and study for a degree and it's arse about face. We tend to do things in an arse-about-face way no matter how hard we try. And I, at the risk of being hopelessly inarticulate I like the arse about face-ness of the LETS system.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Sean Gallacher, The Eskimo, page 27",
          "text": "We've got it so arse about face in modern society.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Placed or arranged the opposite way to the way it should be."
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      "id": "en-arse_about_face-en-adj-y6HMras1",
      "tags": [
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      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2006, Liz Jensen, Egg Dancing, page 212",
          "text": "Use them to inpregnant a woman: muddle up past and future, in-breed across time-zones, turn the family tree into a tangled bush, roots and shoots all arse about face.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Arranged in a confused or haphazard way; muddled."
      ],
      "id": "en-arse_about_face-en-adj-lu5awUyQ",
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      "tags": [
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      "_dis1": "25 26 20 28",
      "word": "arse-about-face"
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      "_dis1": "25 26 20 28",
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      "_dis1": "25 26 20 28",
      "word": "arse about tip"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "25 26 20 28",
      "word": "arse about tit"
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  "word": "arse about face"
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          "kind": "other",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2005, Sam Smith, The End of Science Fiction, page 179",
          "text": "We've been looking at it arse about face.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Russell Shaw, Easy: A Dogs Life, page 54",
          "text": "‘Look, Mary. That chap is sitting arse about face. He's having a laugh. He can't be serious.’\n‘Don't be so critical, George. More than likely it's his first time on a horse.’",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2011, John Harvey, Rough Treatment, page 31",
          "text": "What was it about Charlie Resnick that made him so special? With his shirt still crumpled from the wash and his tie knotted arse-about-face.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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          "text": "Meanwhile the Law, as usual, tumbles arse about face: the killings multiply; the cops are clueless and duly arrest the wrong man.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "In a confused or haphazard manner."
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      "id": "en-arse_about_face-en-adv-nftPjVpR",
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      "word": "arse-about-face"
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    },
    {
      "_dis1": "25 26 20 28",
      "word": "arse about tip"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "25 26 20 28",
      "word": "arse about tit"
    }
  ],
  "word": "arse about face"
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          "text": "No wonder it doesn't look right mate, you've got the whole thing arse about face."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Ian Sansom, The Truth About Babies: From A-Z, Granta, page 256",
          "text": "It’s absurd, topsy-turvy, arse-about-face. But shit, nonetheless, demands a reading, and vice versa.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Mick Lee, Scream If You Want To Go Faster, Authors On Line Ltd, page 78",
          "text": "Someone blows a hole in the head of the owner a couple of places along the Gap and nobody seems to give a shit. Fucking arse about face this fucking place.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Peter North, quoting an anonymous member of a local currency scheme, “Self-Analysis: Do Members see LETS as a Social Movement?”, in Alternative Currency Movements As A Challenge To Globalisation?: A Case Study of Manchester's Local Currency Networks, Ashgate Publishing, Part II Manchester's Alternative Currency Networks, page 99",
          "text": "Like we didn't move here for my job, we came here (for ...) to become a student and study for a degree and it's arse about face. We tend to do things in an arse-about-face way no matter how hard we try. And I, at the risk of being hopelessly inarticulate I like the arse about face-ness of the LETS system.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2010, Sean Gallacher, The Eskimo, page 27",
          "text": "We've got it so arse about face in modern society.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "glosses": [
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          "type": "quotation"
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "arse-about-face"
    },
    {
      "word": "arse about front"
    },
    {
      "word": "arse about tip"
    },
    {
      "word": "arse about tit"
    }
  ],
  "word": "arse about face"
}

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          "ref": "2005, Sam Smith, The End of Science Fiction, page 179",
          "text": "We've been looking at it arse about face.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Russell Shaw, Easy: A Dogs Life, page 54",
          "text": "‘Look, Mary. That chap is sitting arse about face. He's having a laugh. He can't be serious.’\n‘Don't be so critical, George. More than likely it's his first time on a horse.’",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2011, John Harvey, Rough Treatment, page 31",
          "text": "What was it about Charlie Resnick that made him so special? With his shirt still crumpled from the wash and his tie knotted arse-about-face.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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          "text": "Meanwhile the Law, as usual, tumbles arse about face: the killings multiply; the cops are clueless and duly arrest the wrong man.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "word": "arse-about-face"
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      "word": "arse about front"
    },
    {
      "word": "arse about tip"
    },
    {
      "word": "arse about tit"
    }
  ],
  "word": "arse about face"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.