See beer and skittles in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for beer and skittles meaning in English (3.9kB)
{
"etymology_text": "Found as early as 1837, in Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, where it appears in the form, “It’s a reg’lar holiday to them—all porter and skittles”. The most common form, as a negative admonition, appears to have been popularized by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days (1857, see quotation below).",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "p"
},
"expansion": "beer and skittles pl (plural only)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "British English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English coordinated pairs",
"parents": [
"Coordinated pairs",
"Terms by etymology"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"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"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English pluralia tantum",
"parents": [
"Pluralia tantum",
"Nouns",
"Lemmas"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "life is not all beer and skittles"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1857, Thomas Hughes, chapter 2, in Tom Brown's School Days",
"text": "Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all beer and skittles—but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1911, Anthony Hope, chapter 22, in Mrs. Maxon Protests, page 259",
"text": "Being a soldier's wife isn't all beer and skittles.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012 March 24, John Walsh, “The perils of reviewing restaurants”, in The Independent",
"text": "His plight reveals a truth that's often obscured by the envy of newspaper readers; that it's not all beer and skittles in restaurant-critic land.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2022 October 5, Nick Brodrick, “Pendolinos: a huge role to play”, in RAIL, number 967, page 41",
"text": "Such highly intensive deployment left little wriggle room, something with which Dunster is all too familiar. \"It hasn't all been beer and skittles,\" he says dryly.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Fun times; pleasure and leisure."
],
"id": "en-beer_and_skittles-en-noun-ro-2a3ra",
"links": [
[
"pleasure",
"pleasure"
],
[
"leisure",
"leisure"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(chiefly UK, idiomatic) Fun times; pleasure and leisure."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "peaches and cream"
},
{
"word": "bed of roses"
},
{
"word": "bowl of cherries"
},
{
"word": "sunshine and rainbows"
},
{
"word": "pleasure"
},
{
"word": "skittles and beer"
}
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"idiomatic",
"plural",
"plural-only"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "flors i violes"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "rozengeur en maneschijn"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "hauskanpito"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "fun times",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "bon temps"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "jólin"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "no todo el monte es orégano"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "dans på rosor"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-beer and skittles.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ec/En-au-beer_and_skittles.ogg/En-au-beer_and_skittles.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/En-au-beer_and_skittles.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "beer and skittles"
}
{
"derived": [
{
"word": "life is not all beer and skittles"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Found as early as 1837, in Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, where it appears in the form, “It’s a reg’lar holiday to them—all porter and skittles”. The most common form, as a negative admonition, appears to have been popularized by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days (1857, see quotation below).",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "p"
},
"expansion": "beer and skittles pl (plural only)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"British English",
"English coordinated pairs",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English pluralia tantum",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1857, Thomas Hughes, chapter 2, in Tom Brown's School Days",
"text": "Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all beer and skittles—but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1911, Anthony Hope, chapter 22, in Mrs. Maxon Protests, page 259",
"text": "Being a soldier's wife isn't all beer and skittles.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012 March 24, John Walsh, “The perils of reviewing restaurants”, in The Independent",
"text": "His plight reveals a truth that's often obscured by the envy of newspaper readers; that it's not all beer and skittles in restaurant-critic land.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2022 October 5, Nick Brodrick, “Pendolinos: a huge role to play”, in RAIL, number 967, page 41",
"text": "Such highly intensive deployment left little wriggle room, something with which Dunster is all too familiar. \"It hasn't all been beer and skittles,\" he says dryly.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Fun times; pleasure and leisure."
],
"links": [
[
"pleasure",
"pleasure"
],
[
"leisure",
"leisure"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(chiefly UK, idiomatic) Fun times; pleasure and leisure."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "peaches and cream"
},
{
"word": "bed of roses"
},
{
"word": "bowl of cherries"
},
{
"word": "sunshine and rainbows"
},
{
"word": "pleasure"
}
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"idiomatic",
"plural",
"plural-only"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-beer and skittles.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ec/En-au-beer_and_skittles.ogg/En-au-beer_and_skittles.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/En-au-beer_and_skittles.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "skittles and beer"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "flors i violes"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "rozengeur en maneschijn"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "hauskanpito"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "fun times",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "bon temps"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "jólin"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "no todo el monte es orégano"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "fun times",
"word": "dans på rosor"
}
],
"word": "beer and skittles"
}
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.