See be-all and end-all in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for be-all and end-all meaning in English (3.5kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "be-alls and end-alls",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "be-alls and end-alls"
},
"expansion": "be-all and end-all (plural be-alls and end-alls)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"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"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He thought that cars were the be-all and end-all of life."
},
{
"text": "Profit is the be-all and end-all of business."
},
{
"ref": "a. 1606, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 1, scene 7, lines 4–5",
"text": "That but this blow / Might be the be-all and the end-all!",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 September 23, A teacher, “Choosing a primary school: a teacher's guide for parents”, in The Guardian",
"text": "The compulsory tests in reading, writing and maths at the end of years 2 and 6 are often mistakenly seen as the be-all and end-all of a child's chances in life, and the quality of their school.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Something considered to be of the utmost importance; something essential or ultimate."
],
"id": "en-be-all_and_end-all-en-noun-nIYztIEF",
"links": [
[
"utmost",
"utmost"
],
[
"importance",
"importance"
],
[
"essential",
"essential"
],
[
"ultimate",
"ultimate"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Something considered to be of the utmost importance; something essential or ultimate."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "end in itself"
},
{
"word": "raison d'être"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "be-all end-all"
},
{
"word": "end-all be-all"
},
{
"word": "end-all and be-all"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"word": "první a poslední"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"word": "kaikki kaikessa"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raison d’être"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "A und O"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Wichtigste"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Daseinsgrund"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Maß aller Dinge"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"negative"
],
"word": "das ist auch nicht alles"
},
{
"code": "grc",
"lang": "Ancient Greek",
"roman": "arkhḕ kaì télos",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"word": "ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "razão de ser"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-be-all and end-all.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d7/En-au-be-all_and_end-all.ogg/En-au-be-all_and_end-all.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/En-au-be-all_and_end-all.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "be-all and end-all"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "be-alls and end-alls",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "be-alls and end-alls"
},
"expansion": "be-all and end-all (plural be-alls and end-alls)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "end in itself"
},
{
"word": "raison d'être"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He thought that cars were the be-all and end-all of life."
},
{
"text": "Profit is the be-all and end-all of business."
},
{
"ref": "a. 1606, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 1, scene 7, lines 4–5",
"text": "That but this blow / Might be the be-all and the end-all!",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 September 23, A teacher, “Choosing a primary school: a teacher's guide for parents”, in The Guardian",
"text": "The compulsory tests in reading, writing and maths at the end of years 2 and 6 are often mistakenly seen as the be-all and end-all of a child's chances in life, and the quality of their school.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Something considered to be of the utmost importance; something essential or ultimate."
],
"links": [
[
"utmost",
"utmost"
],
[
"importance",
"importance"
],
[
"essential",
"essential"
],
[
"ultimate",
"ultimate"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Something considered to be of the utmost importance; something essential or ultimate."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-be-all and end-all.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d7/En-au-be-all_and_end-all.ogg/En-au-be-all_and_end-all.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/En-au-be-all_and_end-all.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "be-all end-all"
},
{
"word": "end-all be-all"
},
{
"word": "end-all and be-all"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"word": "první a poslední"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"word": "kaikki kaikessa"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "raison d’être"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "A und O"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Wichtigste"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Daseinsgrund"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Maß aller Dinge"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"negative"
],
"word": "das ist auch nicht alles"
},
{
"code": "grc",
"lang": "Ancient Greek",
"roman": "arkhḕ kaì télos",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"word": "ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "Something considered to be of the utmost importance",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "razão de ser"
}
],
"word": "be-all and end-all"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). 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.