See deer in the headlights in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From the image of a deer caught in a car's headlights – wide-open eyes, lack of motor reactions, etc.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "deer in the headlights",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "deer in the headlights"
},
"expansion": "deer in the headlights (plural deer in the headlights)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "78 22",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
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"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "87 13",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "94 6",
"kind": "other",
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},
{
"_dis": "99 1",
"kind": "topical",
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"name": "People",
"orig": "en:People",
"parents": [
"Human",
"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"derived": [
{
"_dis1": "94 6",
"word": "deer in the headlight syndrome"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person in a mental state of high arousal caused by anxiety, fear, panic, surprise , confusion, or substance abuse."
],
"id": "en-deer_in_the_headlights-en-noun-wYP9AlFe",
"links": [
[
"mental",
"mental"
],
[
"arousal",
"arousal"
],
[
"anxiety",
"anxiety"
],
[
"fear",
"fear"
],
[
"panic",
"panic"
],
[
"surprise",
"surprise"
],
[
"confusion",
"confusion"
],
[
"substance abuse",
"substance abuse"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) A person in a mental state of high arousal caused by anxiety, fear, panic, surprise , confusion, or substance abuse."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "90 10",
"word": "deer in headlights"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 10",
"tags": [
"Australia",
"UK"
],
"word": "rabbit in the headlights"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2000, Thomas Hoover, Life Blood, →ISBN:",
"text": "\"What! I thought you were finished with principal photography.\" He looked disoriented, the deer in the headlights. Hints of extra crew time always had that effect on him.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person with a stunned or glazed expression."
],
"id": "en-deer_in_the_headlights-en-noun-p1Ubl6u3",
"links": [
[
"stunned",
"stunned"
],
[
"glazed",
"glazed"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) A person with a stunned or glazed expression."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
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"word": "deer in the headlights"
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{
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"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
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"en:People"
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "deer in the headlight syndrome"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From the image of a deer caught in a car's headlights – wide-open eyes, lack of motor reactions, etc.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "deer in the headlights",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "deer in the headlights"
},
"expansion": "deer in the headlights (plural deer in the headlights)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms"
],
"glosses": [
"A person in a mental state of high arousal caused by anxiety, fear, panic, surprise , confusion, or substance abuse."
],
"links": [
[
"mental",
"mental"
],
[
"arousal",
"arousal"
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[
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[
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],
[
"panic",
"panic"
],
[
"surprise",
"surprise"
],
[
"confusion",
"confusion"
],
[
"substance abuse",
"substance abuse"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) A person in a mental state of high arousal caused by anxiety, fear, panic, surprise , confusion, or substance abuse."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2000, Thomas Hoover, Life Blood, →ISBN:",
"text": "\"What! I thought you were finished with principal photography.\" He looked disoriented, the deer in the headlights. Hints of extra crew time always had that effect on him.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person with a stunned or glazed expression."
],
"links": [
[
"stunned",
"stunned"
],
[
"glazed",
"glazed"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) A person with a stunned or glazed expression."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-deer in the headlights.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/8d/En-au-deer_in_the_headlights.ogg/En-au-deer_in_the_headlights.ogg.mp3",
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],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "deer in headlights"
},
{
"tags": [
"Australia",
"UK"
],
"word": "rabbit in the headlights"
}
],
"word": "deer in the headlights"
}
Download raw JSONL data for deer in the headlights meaning in English (2.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (eaedd02 and 8fbd9e8). 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.