See come out of the woodwork in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for come out of the woodwork meaning in English (3.5kB)
{
"etymology_text": "From the idea of insects crawling out from inside the woodwork in a house.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "comes out of the woodwork",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "coming out of the woodwork",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "came out of the woodwork",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "come out of the woodwork",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "come<,,came,come> out of the woodwork"
},
"expansion": "come out of the woodwork (third-person singular simple present comes out of the woodwork, present participle coming out of the woodwork, simple past came out of the woodwork, past participle come out of the woodwork)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"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"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He won the lottery last year and he has had old \"friends\" and distant relatives coming out of the woodwork ever since.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1947 May, Colonel S. Legree, “We Must Get Together”, in Infantry Journal, volume 60, number 5, page 26",
"text": "[...] 90-day wonders [...] were kicked around by harassed Regulars who were [...] just too busy to take time to spare the feelings of those strange creatures who came out of the woodwork and wanted the privileges of officers, without being fully prepared to do the work of officers.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1992, Robert P. Newman, chapter 0, in Owen Lattimore and the “Loss” of China, page 227",
"text": "Would-be informants came crawling out of the woodwork, drawn to McCarthy as moths to light, each peddling a new version of Lattimore's evil deeds.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006, John Marsden, Circle of Flight: The Ellie Chronicles: 3, unnumbered page",
"text": "And suddenly they came out of the woodwork. I don't actually know what that expression means. What come out of the woodwork? Cockroaches maybe. Mice?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Enzo Centofanti, chapter 0, in Out of Africa and into America: The Odyssey of Italians in East Africa, page 136",
"text": "With the fall of the fascist regime, Italy was virtually overrun by several political parties who came out of the woodwork to fill in the vacuum.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"to appear or emerge unexpectedly or inexplicably, frequently in large numbers or quantity."
],
"id": "en-come_out_of_the_woodwork-en-verb-h8GiEa-s",
"links": [
[
"appear",
"appear"
],
[
"emerge",
"emerge"
],
[
"unexpectedly",
"unexpectedly"
],
[
"inexplicably",
"inexplicably"
],
[
"numbers",
"numbers"
],
[
"quantity",
"quantity"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, disapproving) to appear or emerge unexpectedly or inexplicably, frequently in large numbers or quantity."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "come out of the closet"
},
{
"word": "coming out of one's ears"
},
{
"word": "out of nowhere"
},
{
"word": "out of the blue"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "crawl out of the woodwork"
}
],
"tags": [
"disapproving",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-come out of the woodwork.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3a/En-au-come_out_of_the_woodwork.ogg/En-au-come_out_of_the_woodwork.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/En-au-come_out_of_the_woodwork.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "come out of the woodwork"
}
{
"etymology_text": "From the idea of insects crawling out from inside the woodwork in a house.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "comes out of the woodwork",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "coming out of the woodwork",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "came out of the woodwork",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "come out of the woodwork",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "come<,,came,come> out of the woodwork"
},
"expansion": "come out of the woodwork (third-person singular simple present comes out of the woodwork, present participle coming out of the woodwork, simple past came out of the woodwork, past participle come out of the woodwork)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "come out of the closet"
},
{
"word": "coming out of one's ears"
},
{
"word": "out of nowhere"
},
{
"word": "out of the blue"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"English verbs",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He won the lottery last year and he has had old \"friends\" and distant relatives coming out of the woodwork ever since.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1947 May, Colonel S. Legree, “We Must Get Together”, in Infantry Journal, volume 60, number 5, page 26",
"text": "[...] 90-day wonders [...] were kicked around by harassed Regulars who were [...] just too busy to take time to spare the feelings of those strange creatures who came out of the woodwork and wanted the privileges of officers, without being fully prepared to do the work of officers.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1992, Robert P. Newman, chapter 0, in Owen Lattimore and the “Loss” of China, page 227",
"text": "Would-be informants came crawling out of the woodwork, drawn to McCarthy as moths to light, each peddling a new version of Lattimore's evil deeds.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006, John Marsden, Circle of Flight: The Ellie Chronicles: 3, unnumbered page",
"text": "And suddenly they came out of the woodwork. I don't actually know what that expression means. What come out of the woodwork? Cockroaches maybe. Mice?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012, Enzo Centofanti, chapter 0, in Out of Africa and into America: The Odyssey of Italians in East Africa, page 136",
"text": "With the fall of the fascist regime, Italy was virtually overrun by several political parties who came out of the woodwork to fill in the vacuum.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"to appear or emerge unexpectedly or inexplicably, frequently in large numbers or quantity."
],
"links": [
[
"appear",
"appear"
],
[
"emerge",
"emerge"
],
[
"unexpectedly",
"unexpectedly"
],
[
"inexplicably",
"inexplicably"
],
[
"numbers",
"numbers"
],
[
"quantity",
"quantity"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, disapproving) to appear or emerge unexpectedly or inexplicably, frequently in large numbers or quantity."
],
"tags": [
"disapproving",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-come out of the woodwork.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3a/En-au-come_out_of_the_woodwork.ogg/En-au-come_out_of_the_woodwork.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/En-au-come_out_of_the_woodwork.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "crawl out of the woodwork"
}
],
"word": "come out of the woodwork"
}
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.
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