See bad news travels fast in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "proverb",
"head": "~bad news; travels"
},
"expansion": "bad news travels fast",
"name": "en-head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "proverb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English proverbs",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Arabic translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with German translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Japanese translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Korean translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Mandarin translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Polish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Vietnamese translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
390,
411
]
],
"ref": "1992, Robert L. Genua, Managing Your Mouth: An Owner's Manual for Your Most Important Business Asset, →ISBN:",
"text": "After all, reorganizations, personnel changes, new policies on subjects such as travel and expense reports, are everyday occurrences, but the rumor that the Vice President of Sales has a son at college who was arrested for possession of a controlled substance, aha! That is another matter. That is news! Once put out on the grapevine, it will travel with blinding speed around the circuit. Bad news travels fast.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
0,
21
]
],
"ref": "2011, Wendy Hornsby, Bad Intent, →ISBN:",
"text": "Bad news travels fast, especially when it travels by satellite. I had picked up the receiver with a sense of dread. I expected to hear on the other end an obscene caller, a local news person looking for fresh dirt, a concerned but nosy friend.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
36,
57
]
],
"ref": "2012, J.W. James III, North Beach Road, →ISBN, page 66:",
"text": "In small towns, as the saying goes, bad news travels fast. St. Charles, Idaho was no exception. Recent going's on eventually makes their way to people one might not expect.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Bad news circulates quickly because people often circulate it everywhere."
],
"id": "en-bad_news_travels_fast-en-proverb-62K~wyqC",
"links": [
[
"Bad news",
"bad news"
],
[
"circulate",
"circulate"
],
[
"quickly",
"quickly"
],
[
"people",
"people"
],
[
"everywhere",
"everywhere"
]
],
"related": [
{
"word": "a lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on"
},
{
"word": "no news is good news"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "ill news spreads apace"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"lang_code": "ar",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "الأخبار السيئة تنتشر بسرعة"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"lang_code": "cmn",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "壞事傳千里 /坏事传千里"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"lang_code": "fi",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "huonot uutiset kiirivät nopeasti"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"lang_code": "de",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "schlechte Nachrichten verbreiten sich schnell"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"lang_code": "ja",
"roman": "akuji senri o hashiru",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "悪事千里を走る"
},
{
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"lang_code": "ko",
"roman": "bal eomneun mar-i cheon ri ganda",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "발 없는 말이 천 리 간다"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "złe wieści szybko się rozchodzą"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"lang_code": "pt",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "as más notícias viajam depressam"
},
{
"code": "vi",
"lang": "Vietnamese",
"lang_code": "vi",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "tiếng dữ đồn xa"
}
]
}
],
"word": "bad news travels fast"
}
{
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "proverb",
"head": "~bad news; travels"
},
"expansion": "bad news travels fast",
"name": "en-head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "proverb",
"related": [
{
"word": "a lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on"
},
{
"word": "no news is good news"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English proverbs",
"English terms with quotations",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Arabic translations",
"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with German translations",
"Terms with Japanese translations",
"Terms with Korean translations",
"Terms with Mandarin translations",
"Terms with Polish translations",
"Terms with Portuguese translations",
"Terms with Vietnamese translations",
"Translation table header lacks gloss"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
390,
411
]
],
"ref": "1992, Robert L. Genua, Managing Your Mouth: An Owner's Manual for Your Most Important Business Asset, →ISBN:",
"text": "After all, reorganizations, personnel changes, new policies on subjects such as travel and expense reports, are everyday occurrences, but the rumor that the Vice President of Sales has a son at college who was arrested for possession of a controlled substance, aha! That is another matter. That is news! Once put out on the grapevine, it will travel with blinding speed around the circuit. Bad news travels fast.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
0,
21
]
],
"ref": "2011, Wendy Hornsby, Bad Intent, →ISBN:",
"text": "Bad news travels fast, especially when it travels by satellite. I had picked up the receiver with a sense of dread. I expected to hear on the other end an obscene caller, a local news person looking for fresh dirt, a concerned but nosy friend.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
36,
57
]
],
"ref": "2012, J.W. James III, North Beach Road, →ISBN, page 66:",
"text": "In small towns, as the saying goes, bad news travels fast. St. Charles, Idaho was no exception. Recent going's on eventually makes their way to people one might not expect.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Bad news circulates quickly because people often circulate it everywhere."
],
"links": [
[
"Bad news",
"bad news"
],
[
"circulate",
"circulate"
],
[
"quickly",
"quickly"
],
[
"people",
"people"
],
[
"everywhere",
"everywhere"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "ill news spreads apace"
}
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ar",
"lang": "Arabic",
"lang_code": "ar",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "الأخبار السيئة تنتشر بسرعة"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"lang_code": "cmn",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "壞事傳千里 /坏事传千里"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"lang_code": "fi",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "huonot uutiset kiirivät nopeasti"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"lang_code": "de",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "schlechte Nachrichten verbreiten sich schnell"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"lang_code": "ja",
"roman": "akuji senri o hashiru",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "悪事千里を走る"
},
{
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"lang_code": "ko",
"roman": "bal eomneun mar-i cheon ri ganda",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "발 없는 말이 천 리 간다"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "złe wieści szybko się rozchodzą"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"lang_code": "pt",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "as más notícias viajam depressam"
},
{
"code": "vi",
"lang": "Vietnamese",
"lang_code": "vi",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "tiếng dữ đồn xa"
}
],
"word": "bad news travels fast"
}
Download raw JSONL data for bad news travels fast meaning in English (3.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). 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.