"brown noser" meaning in English

See brown noser in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-brown noser.ogg [Australia] Forms: brown nosers [plural]
Etymology: A metaphorical image: when kissing the buttocks of another person, one's nose is liable to be covered in brown feces. Head templates: {{en-noun}} brown noser (plural brown nosers)
  1. (idiomatic) One who brownnoses (flatters or humors somebody in an obsequious manner for personal gain); one who sucks up; a bootlicker, ass-kisser, sycophant. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): People, Personality Synonyms: brown-nose, brown-noser, brownnoser

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for brown noser meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "A metaphorical image: when kissing the buttocks of another person, one's nose is liable to be covered in brown feces.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "brown nosers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "brown noser (plural brown nosers)",
      "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": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Personality",
          "orig": "en:Personality",
          "parents": [
            "Mind",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One who brownnoses (flatters or humors somebody in an obsequious manner for personal gain); one who sucks up; a bootlicker, ass-kisser, sycophant."
      ],
      "id": "en-brown_noser-en-noun-FkIji~Dp",
      "links": [
        [
          "brownnose",
          "brownnose"
        ],
        [
          "flatters",
          "flatters"
        ],
        [
          "humors",
          "humors"
        ],
        [
          "obsequious",
          "obsequious"
        ],
        [
          "sucks up",
          "suck up"
        ],
        [
          "bootlicker",
          "bootlicker"
        ],
        [
          "ass-kisser",
          "ass-kisser"
        ],
        [
          "sycophant",
          "sycophant"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) One who brownnoses (flatters or humors somebody in an obsequious manner for personal gain); one who sucks up; a bootlicker, ass-kisser, sycophant."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "brown-nose"
        },
        {
          "word": "brown-noser"
        },
        {
          "word": "brownnoser"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-brown noser.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ec/En-au-brown_noser.ogg/En-au-brown_noser.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/En-au-brown_noser.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "brown noser"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "A metaphorical image: when kissing the buttocks of another person, one's nose is liable to be covered in brown feces.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "brown nosers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "brown noser (plural brown nosers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "en:People",
        "en:Personality"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One who brownnoses (flatters or humors somebody in an obsequious manner for personal gain); one who sucks up; a bootlicker, ass-kisser, sycophant."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "brownnose",
          "brownnose"
        ],
        [
          "flatters",
          "flatters"
        ],
        [
          "humors",
          "humors"
        ],
        [
          "obsequious",
          "obsequious"
        ],
        [
          "sucks up",
          "suck up"
        ],
        [
          "bootlicker",
          "bootlicker"
        ],
        [
          "ass-kisser",
          "ass-kisser"
        ],
        [
          "sycophant",
          "sycophant"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) One who brownnoses (flatters or humors somebody in an obsequious manner for personal gain); one who sucks up; a bootlicker, ass-kisser, sycophant."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-brown noser.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ec/En-au-brown_noser.ogg/En-au-brown_noser.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/En-au-brown_noser.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "brown-nose"
    },
    {
      "word": "brown-noser"
    },
    {
      "word": "brownnoser"
    }
  ],
  "word": "brown noser"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (1d5a7d1 and 304864d). 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.