"barrel of monkeys" meaning in English

See barrel of monkeys in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˌbæɹ(ə)l‿əv ˈmʌŋkiz/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˌbæɹəl‿əv ˈmʌŋkiz/ [General-American], /bɛ-/ [General-American] Audio: En-au-barrel of monkeys.ogg Forms: barrels of monkeys [plural]
Etymology: Possibly influenced by barrel of fun or barrel of laughs. Head templates: {{en-noun|barrels of monkeys}} barrel of monkeys (plural barrels of monkeys)
  1. (idiomatic, informal) Someone or something very amusing or funny, fun, mischievous, etc. Tags: idiomatic, informal Categories (topical): Comedy Synonyms: hoot, riot Related terms: monkey about, monkey around, monkeyshine Translations (someone or something very amusing or funny, fun, mischievous, etc.): naurattaja (english: someone) (Finnish)

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "Possibly influenced by barrel of fun or barrel of laughs.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "barrels of monkeys",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "barrels of monkeys"
      },
      "expansion": "barrel of monkeys (plural barrels of monkeys)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "bar‧rel"
  ],
  "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": "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 Finnish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Comedy",
          "orig": "en:Comedy",
          "parents": [
            "Drama",
            "Theater",
            "Art",
            "Entertainment",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He thinks he’s a barrel of monkeys, but he’s not particularly entertaining.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone or something very amusing or funny, fun, mischievous, etc."
      ],
      "id": "en-barrel_of_monkeys-en-noun-O-DdPf7A",
      "links": [
        [
          "amusing",
          "amusing#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "funny",
          "funny#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "fun",
          "fun#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "mischievous",
          "mischievous"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, informal) Someone or something very amusing or funny, fun, mischievous, etc."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "monkey about"
        },
        {
          "word": "monkey around"
        },
        {
          "word": "monkeyshine"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hoot"
        },
        {
          "word": "riot"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "english": "someone",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "someone or something very amusing or funny, fun, mischievous, etc.",
          "word": "naurattaja"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌbæɹ(ə)l‿əv ˈmʌŋkiz/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌbæɹəl‿əv ˈmʌŋkiz/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/bɛ-/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-barrel of monkeys.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/bc/En-au-barrel_of_monkeys.ogg/En-au-barrel_of_monkeys.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/En-au-barrel_of_monkeys.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "barrel of monkeys"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Possibly influenced by barrel of fun or barrel of laughs.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "barrels of monkeys",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "barrels of monkeys"
      },
      "expansion": "barrel of monkeys (plural barrels of monkeys)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "bar‧rel"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "monkey about"
    },
    {
      "word": "monkey around"
    },
    {
      "word": "monkeyshine"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "en:Comedy"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He thinks he’s a barrel of monkeys, but he’s not particularly entertaining.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone or something very amusing or funny, fun, mischievous, etc."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "amusing",
          "amusing#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "funny",
          "funny#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "fun",
          "fun#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "mischievous",
          "mischievous"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, informal) Someone or something very amusing or funny, fun, mischievous, etc."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hoot"
        },
        {
          "word": "riot"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌbæɹ(ə)l‿əv ˈmʌŋkiz/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌbæɹəl‿əv ˈmʌŋkiz/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/bɛ-/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-barrel of monkeys.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/bc/En-au-barrel_of_monkeys.ogg/En-au-barrel_of_monkeys.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/En-au-barrel_of_monkeys.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "english": "someone",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "someone or something very amusing or funny, fun, mischievous, etc.",
      "word": "naurattaja"
    }
  ],
  "word": "barrel of monkeys"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-02 using wiktextract (f90d964 and 9dbd323). 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.