See ball and chain in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for ball and chain meaning in English (3.8kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "balls and chains",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "balls and chains"
},
"expansion": "ball and chain (plural balls and chains)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "44 14 43",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English coordinated pairs",
"parents": [
"Coordinated pairs",
"Terms by etymology"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1964, “The House of the Rising Sun”, performed by The Animals",
"text": "Well, I got one foot on the platform / The other foot on the train / I'm goin' back to New Orleans / To wear that ball and chain",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1990, Mike Ness (songwriter), Social Distortion (band), “Ball and Chain”",
"text": "Take away this ball and chain."
}
],
"glosses": [
"A heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner's leg by a chain as a means of restraint."
],
"id": "en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-Zz1gaOqN",
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "62 35 4",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "means of restraint",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "boulet"
},
{
"_dis1": "62 35 4",
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "means of restraint",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"plural"
],
"word": "bukagije"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "44 14 43",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English coordinated pairs",
"parents": [
"Coordinated pairs",
"Terms by etymology"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
],
"id": "en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-rJrbqxQt",
"links": [
[
"wife",
"wife"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang) One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
],
"tags": [
"slang"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "44 14 43",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English coordinated pairs",
"parents": [
"Coordinated pairs",
"Terms by etymology"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "17 33 50",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "20 30 50",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "24 26 50",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "21 28 51",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "33 19 48",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Marriage",
"orig": "en:Marriage",
"parents": [
"Culture",
"Family",
"Society",
"People",
"All topics",
"Human",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2011, John Bradley, Cadbury's Purple Reign: The Story Behind Chocolate's Best-Loved Brand",
"text": "Their business model of the 1920s and 1930s, which had catapulted the business to undreamt-of heights, had then turned into something of a ball and chain.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
],
"id": "en-ball_and_chain-en-noun-ZQ9qdKyM",
"links": [
[
"restrict",
"restrict"
],
[
"freedom",
"freedom"
],
[
"opportunities",
"opportunity"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figurative) Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-ball and chain.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cd/En-au-ball_and_chain.ogg/En-au-ball_and_chain.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/En-au-ball_and_chain.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Kimitoön"
],
"word": "ball and chain"
}
{
"categories": [
"English coordinated pairs",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"en:Marriage"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "balls and chains",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "balls and chains"
},
"expansion": "ball and chain (plural balls and chains)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1964, “The House of the Rising Sun”, performed by The Animals",
"text": "Well, I got one foot on the platform / The other foot on the train / I'm goin' back to New Orleans / To wear that ball and chain",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1990, Mike Ness (songwriter), Social Distortion (band), “Ball and Chain”",
"text": "Take away this ball and chain."
}
],
"glosses": [
"A heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner's leg by a chain as a means of restraint."
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English slang"
],
"glosses": [
"One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
],
"links": [
[
"wife",
"wife"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang) One's wife, as a symbol of restraint."
],
"tags": [
"slang"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2011, John Bradley, Cadbury's Purple Reign: The Story Behind Chocolate's Best-Loved Brand",
"text": "Their business model of the 1920s and 1930s, which had catapulted the business to undreamt-of heights, had then turned into something of a ball and chain.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
],
"links": [
[
"restrict",
"restrict"
],
[
"freedom",
"freedom"
],
[
"opportunities",
"opportunity"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figurative) Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-ball and chain.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cd/En-au-ball_and_chain.ogg/En-au-ball_and_chain.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/En-au-ball_and_chain.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "means of restraint",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "boulet"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "means of restraint",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"plural"
],
"word": "bukagije"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Kimitoön"
],
"word": "ball and chain"
}
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.