See big word in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "big words",
"tags": [
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]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "big word (plural big words)",
"name": "en-noun"
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],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "48 52",
"sense": "boastful language",
"word": "talk big"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "74 26",
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"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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{
"_dis": "85 15",
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{
"_dis": "89 11",
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"examples": [
{
"text": "The customer complained that the instructions were incomprehensible, and our office tried to provide remedial help, but when they complained that “supplementary” and “atmospheric” were big words, we knew that they were beyond help.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1860 October 19, The Mount Alexander Mail, page 6:",
"text": "The object of the writer is to show that preachers need not use big words to teach the truth.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1965, James Holledge, What Makes a Call Girl?, London: Horwitz Publications, page 118:",
"text": "`Naturally society frowns on such capers, and your experts have to think up big words to keep their jobs.'",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1981, Harold Barrett, Practical Uses of Speech Communication, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, page 173:",
"text": "Communication can often break down if the terminology is too technical, if a speaker uses “big words” for their own sake and lets the language become overly complex.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2007, Binoo K. John, Entry from Backside Only, page 97:",
"text": "The sudden interjection of big words or complicated usages is a clear instance of the writer taking outside advice[.]",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An erudite word, especially a Latinate or multisyllabic one; a word used by scholars, intellectuals, etc., but that is not commonly known outside of academia."
],
"id": "en-big_word-en-noun-en:unsimple_vocabulary_item",
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"_dis1": "95 5",
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"word": "sesquipedalian"
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"examples": [
{
"text": "big words from a little man",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1888 July 13, The Petersberg Times, South Australia, page 4:",
"text": "Then you said in your paper that there was a paucity of variety and the length of the programme made the latter part to say the least rather monotonous. Now those are big words for a little chap like me, but I say they are very unfair and very misleading.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 266:",
"text": "The big words were beginning to sound empty in his mouth.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Boastful or exaggerated statements."
],
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(in the plural) Boastful or exaggerated statements."
],
"senseid": [
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "big talk"
}
],
"tags": [
"in-plural"
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}
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"word": "big word"
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{
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"forms": [
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"form": "big words",
"tags": [
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"word": "talk big"
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"examples": [
{
"text": "The customer complained that the instructions were incomprehensible, and our office tried to provide remedial help, but when they complained that “supplementary” and “atmospheric” were big words, we knew that they were beyond help.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1860 October 19, The Mount Alexander Mail, page 6:",
"text": "The object of the writer is to show that preachers need not use big words to teach the truth.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1965, James Holledge, What Makes a Call Girl?, London: Horwitz Publications, page 118:",
"text": "`Naturally society frowns on such capers, and your experts have to think up big words to keep their jobs.'",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1981, Harold Barrett, Practical Uses of Speech Communication, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, page 173:",
"text": "Communication can often break down if the terminology is too technical, if a speaker uses “big words” for their own sake and lets the language become overly complex.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2007, Binoo K. John, Entry from Backside Only, page 97:",
"text": "The sudden interjection of big words or complicated usages is a clear instance of the writer taking outside advice[.]",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An erudite word, especially a Latinate or multisyllabic one; a word used by scholars, intellectuals, etc., but that is not commonly known outside of academia."
],
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"erudite",
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{
"text": "big words from a little man",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1888 July 13, The Petersberg Times, South Australia, page 4:",
"text": "Then you said in your paper that there was a paucity of variety and the length of the programme made the latter part to say the least rather monotonous. Now those are big words for a little chap like me, but I say they are very unfair and very misleading.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 266:",
"text": "The big words were beginning to sound empty in his mouth.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Boastful or exaggerated statements."
],
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[
"Boastful",
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],
[
"exaggerated",
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]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(in the plural) Boastful or exaggerated statements."
],
"senseid": [
"en:boastful or exaggerated statements"
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "big talk"
}
],
"tags": [
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}
],
"word": "big word"
}
Download raw JSONL data for big word meaning in English (3.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (94ba7e1 and 5dea2a6). 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.