See dance on nothing in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "dances on nothing",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "dancing on nothing",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "danced on nothing",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "danced on nothing",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "dance on nothing (third-person singular simple present dances on nothing, present participle dancing on nothing, simple past and past participle danced on nothing)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
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"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
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"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
123,
139
]
],
"ref": "1849, A. H. Baker, “Hang the Black Rascal”, in The Prisoners' Friend:",
"text": "Oh! Do hang him-we have waited\nMany a day for such a chance;\nLet the hempen cord be baited;\nSee how gracefully he'll dance\nDance on nothing! oh, how funny![…]",
"type": "quotation"
},
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"ref": "1831, David Erskine, James III […] :",
"text": "I would much rather be here, my lady, than dancing on nothing in the Hanging-wood, near Parkend",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To be hanged."
],
"id": "en-dance_on_nothing-en-verb-EIDqrMik",
"links": [
[
"hang",
"hang"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(archaic, idiomatic) To be hanged."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "dance on a rope"
},
{
"word": "dance upon nothing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"dated"
],
"word": "dance on a rope"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic",
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "dance on nothing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"colloquial"
],
"word": "dance the hempen jig"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic"
],
"word": "dance the Tyburn jig"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic"
],
"word": "dance upon nothing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "dangle"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "hang"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"obsolete"
],
"word": "ride a horse foaled by an acorn"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "stretch hemp"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"obsolete"
],
"word": "string up"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "swing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic"
],
"word": "take a ride to Tyburn"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "trine"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic",
"slang"
],
"word": "truss"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "wag hemp"
}
],
"tags": [
"archaic",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"word": "dance on nothing"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "dances on nothing",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "dancing on nothing",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "danced on nothing",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "danced on nothing",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
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"expansion": "dance on nothing (third-person singular simple present dances on nothing, present participle dancing on nothing, simple past and past participle danced on nothing)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
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"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
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"English terms with archaic senses",
"English terms with quotations",
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"ref": "1849, A. H. Baker, “Hang the Black Rascal”, in The Prisoners' Friend:",
"text": "Oh! Do hang him-we have waited\nMany a day for such a chance;\nLet the hempen cord be baited;\nSee how gracefully he'll dance\nDance on nothing! oh, how funny![…]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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43,
61
]
],
"ref": "1831, David Erskine, James III […] :",
"text": "I would much rather be here, my lady, than dancing on nothing in the Hanging-wood, near Parkend",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To be hanged."
],
"links": [
[
"hang",
"hang"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(archaic, idiomatic) To be hanged."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "dance on a rope"
},
{
"word": "dance upon nothing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"dated"
],
"word": "dance on a rope"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic",
"idiomatic"
],
"word": "dance on nothing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"colloquial"
],
"word": "dance the hempen jig"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic"
],
"word": "dance the Tyburn jig"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic"
],
"word": "dance upon nothing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "dangle"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "hang"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"obsolete"
],
"word": "ride a horse foaled by an acorn"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "stretch hemp"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"obsolete"
],
"word": "string up"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "swing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic"
],
"word": "take a ride to Tyburn"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "trine"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"tags": [
"archaic",
"slang"
],
"word": "truss"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:die by hanging",
"word": "wag hemp"
}
],
"tags": [
"archaic",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"word": "dance on nothing"
}
Download raw JSONL data for dance on nothing meaning in English (2.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (96027d6 and 9905b1f). 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.