"cakes and ale" meaning in English

See cakes and ale in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˌkeɪks n̩ ˈeɪl/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation]
Rhymes: -eɪl Etymology: From William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night (written c. 1601–1602), Act II, scene iii: see the quotation. Etymology templates: {{circa2|1601–1602|short=1}} c. 1601–1602 Head templates: {{en-noun|p|head=cakes and ale}} cakes and ale pl (plural only)
  1. The simple material pleasures of life. Tags: British, dated, idiomatic, plural, plural-only
    Sense id: en-cakes_and_ale-en-noun-q7LQ9Tz0
  2. Lively fun and merrymaking. Tags: British, dated, idiomatic, plural, plural-only Related terms: pleasure Translations (lively fun and merrymaking): rose e fiori [idiomatic, masculine, plural] (Italian)
    Sense id: en-cakes_and_ale-en-noun-f1Z52oZg Categories (other): British English, English coordinated pairs, English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English pluralia tantum, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of British English: 29 71 Disambiguation of English coordinated pairs: 21 79 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 13 87 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 6 94 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 7 93 Disambiguation of English pluralia tantum: 18 82 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 6 94 Disambiguation of 'lively fun and merrymaking': 1 99
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Categories (topical): Food and drink
Disambiguation of Food and drink: 0 0

Download JSON data for cakes and ale meaning in English (3.3kB)

{
  "categories": [
    {
      "_dis": "0 0",
      "kind": "topical",
      "langcode": "en",
      "name": "Food and drink",
      "orig": "en:Food and drink",
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        "Fundamental"
      ],
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    }
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  "etymology_templates": [
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "From William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night (written c. 1601–1602), Act II, scene iii: see the quotation.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p",
        "head": "cakes and ale"
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      "expansion": "cakes and ale pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1857 May, “[Notices of Books.] Ivors. By the Author of ‘Amy Herbert,’ ‘Cleve Hall,’ &c. In Two Volumes. Second Edition. New York, D. Appleton and Company. 1857.”, in Henry N[orman] Hudson, editor, The American Church Monthly, volume 1, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Edward P. Allen, […], →OCLC, page 389",
          "text": "To furnish the cakes and ale of the mind, is, we take it, the proper virtue of novels. It is for mental delight and recreation that we resort to them.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The simple material pleasures of life."
      ],
      "id": "en-cakes_and_ale-en-noun-q7LQ9Tz0",
      "links": [
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        ],
        [
          "life",
          "life"
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      "tags": [
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        {
          "_dis": "29 71",
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Lively fun and merrymaking."
      ],
      "id": "en-cakes_and_ale-en-noun-f1Z52oZg",
      "links": [
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          "Lively",
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      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "38 62",
          "word": "pleasure"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "dated",
        "idiomatic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "lively fun and merrymaking",
          "tags": [
            "idiomatic",
            "masculine",
            "plural"
          ],
          "word": "rose e fiori"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌkeɪks n̩ ˈeɪl/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-eɪl"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Twelfth Night",
    "William Shakespeare"
  ],
  "word": "cakes and ale"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English coordinated pairs",
    "English dated terms",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
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    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English idioms",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
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    "English terms first attested in Shakespeare",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
    "Rhymes:English/eɪl",
    "Rhymes:English/eɪl/3 syllables",
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  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "cakes and ale pl (plural only)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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      "word": "pleasure"
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  ],
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        {
          "ref": "1857 May, “[Notices of Books.] Ivors. By the Author of ‘Amy Herbert,’ ‘Cleve Hall,’ &c. In Two Volumes. Second Edition. New York, D. Appleton and Company. 1857.”, in Henry N[orman] Hudson, editor, The American Church Monthly, volume 1, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Edward P. Allen, […], →OCLC, page 389",
          "text": "To furnish the cakes and ale of the mind, is, we take it, the proper virtue of novels. It is for mental delight and recreation that we resort to them.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The simple material pleasures of life."
      ],
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        ],
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        ],
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          "life"
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      "tags": [
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        "Lively fun and merrymaking."
      ],
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      "ipa": "/ˌkeɪks n̩ ˈeɪl/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American",
        "Received-Pronunciation"
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    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-eɪl"
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  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "lively fun and merrymaking",
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "masculine",
        "plural"
      ],
      "word": "rose e fiori"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Twelfth Night",
    "William Shakespeare"
  ],
  "word": "cakes and ale"
}

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.