"chase a rainbow" meaning in English

See chase a rainbow in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-chase a rainbow.ogg [Australia] Forms: chases a rainbow [present, singular, third-person], chasing a rainbow [participle, present], chased a rainbow [participle, past], chased a rainbow [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} chase a rainbow (third-person singular simple present chases a rainbow, present participle chasing a rainbow, simple past and past participle chased a rainbow)
  1. (idiomatic) To pursue something illusory, impractical, or impossible. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: tilt at windmills, fight a losing battle, chasing a rainbow, chasing rainbows Related terms: the cake is a lie, wild-goose chase Translations (to pursue the illusory, impractical, or impossible): délibábot kerget (Hungarian)
    Sense id: en-chase_a_rainbow-en-verb-RnmjSlbj Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for chase a rainbow meaning in English (1.8kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "chases a rainbow",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
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    },
    {
      "form": "chasing a rainbow",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chased a rainbow",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chased a rainbow",
      "tags": [
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
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      "expansion": "chase a rainbow (third-person singular simple present chases a rainbow, present participle chasing a rainbow, simple past and past participle chased a rainbow)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pursue something illusory, impractical, or impossible."
      ],
      "id": "en-chase_a_rainbow-en-verb-RnmjSlbj",
      "links": [
        [
          "pursue",
          "pursue"
        ],
        [
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          "illusory"
        ],
        [
          "impractical",
          "impractical"
        ],
        [
          "impossible",
          "impossible"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To pursue something illusory, impractical, or impossible."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "the cake is a lie"
        },
        {
          "word": "wild-goose chase"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "tilt at windmills"
        },
        {
          "word": "fight a losing battle"
        },
        {
          "word": "chasing a rainbow"
        },
        {
          "word": "chasing rainbows"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "to pursue the illusory, impractical, or impossible",
          "word": "délibábot kerget"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-chase a rainbow.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/72/En-au-chase_a_rainbow.ogg/En-au-chase_a_rainbow.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/En-au-chase_a_rainbow.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "chase a rainbow"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "chases a rainbow",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
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    },
    {
      "form": "chasing a rainbow",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chased a rainbow",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "chased a rainbow",
      "tags": [
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    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
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      "expansion": "chase a rainbow (third-person singular simple present chases a rainbow, present participle chasing a rainbow, simple past and past participle chased a rainbow)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "the cake is a lie"
    },
    {
      "word": "wild-goose chase"
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  ],
  "senses": [
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        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pursue something illusory, impractical, or impossible."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "pursue",
          "pursue"
        ],
        [
          "illusory",
          "illusory"
        ],
        [
          "impractical",
          "impractical"
        ],
        [
          "impossible",
          "impossible"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To pursue something illusory, impractical, or impossible."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-chase a rainbow.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/72/En-au-chase_a_rainbow.ogg/En-au-chase_a_rainbow.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/En-au-chase_a_rainbow.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "tilt at windmills"
    },
    {
      "word": "fight a losing battle"
    },
    {
      "word": "chasing a rainbow"
    },
    {
      "word": "chasing rainbows"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "to pursue the illusory, impractical, or impossible",
      "word": "délibábot kerget"
    }
  ],
  "word": "chase a rainbow"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 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.