"boss key" meaning in English

See boss key in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: boss keys [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} boss key (plural boss keys)
  1. (chiefly video games) A key which, when pressed, hides a program from view by a superior in the workplace. Categories (topical): Video games Synonyms: boss button
    Sense id: en-boss_key-en-noun-WWokXyit Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Topics: video-games

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for boss key meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "boss keys",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "boss key (plural boss keys)",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Video games",
          "orig": "en:Video games",
          "parents": [
            "Games",
            "Mass media",
            "Software",
            "Recreation",
            "Culture",
            "Media",
            "Computing",
            "Human activity",
            "Society",
            "Communication",
            "Technology",
            "Human behaviour",
            "All topics",
            "Human",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "When the directors came out of their meeting, I hit the boss key to replace my game with a fake spreadsheet screen.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1990, Michael Mueller, Martin Schuchardt, The Leisure Suit Larry Story, Abacus, page 19",
          "text": "To obtain the boss key in Leisure Suit Larry games, press <Ctrl><B>. This is also displayed in the “Special” menu. However, use the boss key with caution. First of all, your boss must be really naive if he believes that this display is part of your normal work and secondly, you must be prepared to lose your current score after you press the boss key.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Ian Bogost, Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, MIT Press",
          "text": "For one, the original Tetris game I remember came with a \"boss key,\" a special command built into the game's menu. When the player presses the boss key, the game pauses and draws a noninteractive spreadsheet program onto the screen.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Woody Leonhard, Windows 7 All-in-One For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, page 240",
          "text": "You can use screen savers to create a Super Boss Key—a key combination, such as Alt+F10, that you can press to make the PC immediately switch over to running the screen saver.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A key which, when pressed, hides a program from view by a superior in the workplace."
      ],
      "id": "en-boss_key-en-noun-WWokXyit",
      "links": [
        [
          "video game",
          "video game"
        ],
        [
          "program",
          "program"
        ],
        [
          "superior",
          "superior"
        ],
        [
          "workplace",
          "workplace"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly video games) A key which, when pressed, hides a program from view by a superior in the workplace."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "boss button"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "video-games"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "boss key"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "boss keys",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "boss key (plural boss keys)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "en:Video games"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "When the directors came out of their meeting, I hit the boss key to replace my game with a fake spreadsheet screen.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1990, Michael Mueller, Martin Schuchardt, The Leisure Suit Larry Story, Abacus, page 19",
          "text": "To obtain the boss key in Leisure Suit Larry games, press <Ctrl><B>. This is also displayed in the “Special” menu. However, use the boss key with caution. First of all, your boss must be really naive if he believes that this display is part of your normal work and secondly, you must be prepared to lose your current score after you press the boss key.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Ian Bogost, Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, MIT Press",
          "text": "For one, the original Tetris game I remember came with a \"boss key,\" a special command built into the game's menu. When the player presses the boss key, the game pauses and draws a noninteractive spreadsheet program onto the screen.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Woody Leonhard, Windows 7 All-in-One For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, page 240",
          "text": "You can use screen savers to create a Super Boss Key—a key combination, such as Alt+F10, that you can press to make the PC immediately switch over to running the screen saver.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A key which, when pressed, hides a program from view by a superior in the workplace."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "video game",
          "video game"
        ],
        [
          "program",
          "program"
        ],
        [
          "superior",
          "superior"
        ],
        [
          "workplace",
          "workplace"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly video games) A key which, when pressed, hides a program from view by a superior in the workplace."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "boss button"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "video-games"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "boss key"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.