"brownie point" meaning in English

See brownie point in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-brownie point.ogg [Australia] Forms: brownie points [plural]
Etymology: Unknown, but possibly from brownnose, and often associated with the points Girl Guides or Girl Scouts at the Brownie level (ages 6-8) receive for doing specific tasks that when accumulated earn them badges (a sign of recognition) to wear on their Brownie Uniform. Attested from the 1960s. Etymology templates: {{unk|en}} Unknown, {{m|en|brownnose}} brownnose Head templates: {{en-noun}} brownie point (plural brownie points)
  1. (idiomatic, slang, originally US, chiefly in the plural) Credit or praise for good work or a good deed, often for the express purpose of currying favor. Wikipedia link: Brownies (Scouting) Tags: idiomatic, in-plural, slang Related terms: house points Translations (Translations): irtopiste (Finnish), bon point [masculine] (French)
    Sense id: en-brownie_point-en-noun-uHyrZ6YO Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for brownie point meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en"
      },
      "expansion": "Unknown",
      "name": "unk"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "brownnose"
      },
      "expansion": "brownnose",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Unknown, but possibly from brownnose, and often associated with the points Girl Guides or Girl Scouts at the Brownie level (ages 6-8) receive for doing specific tasks that when accumulated earn them badges (a sign of recognition) to wear on their Brownie Uniform. Attested from the 1960s.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "brownie points",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "brownie point (plural brownie points)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "You're really going to get some brownie points from the teacher for that fantastic essay!",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1967 November, Harriette Bailey Conn, “Women legislators”, in Ebony, page 14",
          "text": "However, you get Brownie points for having spelled my names right—all of them, and the first time too!",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Credit or praise for good work or a good deed, often for the express purpose of currying favor."
      ],
      "id": "en-brownie_point-en-noun-uHyrZ6YO",
      "links": [
        [
          "Credit",
          "credit"
        ],
        [
          "praise",
          "praise"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "deed",
          "deed"
        ],
        [
          "currying favor",
          "curry favor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, slang, originally US, chiefly in the plural) Credit or praise for good work or a good deed, often for the express purpose of currying favor."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "house points"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "in-plural",
        "slang"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "irtopiste"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "bon point"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Brownies (Scouting)"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-brownie point.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/13/En-au-brownie_point.ogg/En-au-brownie_point.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/En-au-brownie_point.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "brownie point"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "Unknown, but possibly from brownnose, and often associated with the points Girl Guides or Girl Scouts at the Brownie level (ages 6-8) receive for doing specific tasks that when accumulated earn them badges (a sign of recognition) to wear on their Brownie Uniform. Attested from the 1960s.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "brownie points",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "brownie point (plural brownie points)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "house points"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with unknown etymologies",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "You're really going to get some brownie points from the teacher for that fantastic essay!",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1967 November, Harriette Bailey Conn, “Women legislators”, in Ebony, page 14",
          "text": "However, you get Brownie points for having spelled my names right—all of them, and the first time too!",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Credit or praise for good work or a good deed, often for the express purpose of currying favor."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Credit",
          "credit"
        ],
        [
          "praise",
          "praise"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "deed",
          "deed"
        ],
        [
          "currying favor",
          "curry favor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, slang, originally US, chiefly in the plural) Credit or praise for good work or a good deed, often for the express purpose of currying favor."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "in-plural",
        "slang"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Brownies (Scouting)"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "en-au-brownie point.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/13/En-au-brownie_point.ogg/En-au-brownie_point.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/En-au-brownie_point.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "irtopiste"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "bon point"
    }
  ],
  "word": "brownie point"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 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.