"dueling banjos" meaning in English

See dueling banjos in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: From a scene in the 1972 film Deliverance in which a tourist with a guitar gets into a picking contest with a hillbilly on a banjo, both playing parts of the song "Dueling Banjos" (originally titled "Feuding Banjos") by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith. Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} dueling banjos pl (plural only)
  1. A contest of skill in which two people try to top each other's offerings, especially one involving musical ability. Tags: plural, plural-only
    Sense id: en-dueling_banjos-en-noun-6jHJxrvP Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 59 41 Disambiguation of English pluralia tantum: 73 27 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 67 33 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 72 28
  2. Something typical of a stereotypic hillbilly; Something characterized by lack of education, poverty, inbreeding or lack of sophistication. Tags: plural, plural-only
    Sense id: en-dueling_banjos-en-noun-~-ozODJX
{
  "etymology_text": "From a scene in the 1972 film Deliverance in which a tourist with a guitar gets into a picking contest with a hillbilly on a banjo, both playing parts of the song \"Dueling Banjos\" (originally titled \"Feuding Banjos\") by Arthur \"Guitar Boogie\" Smith.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "dueling banjos pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "59 41",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "73 27",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English pluralia tantum",
          "parents": [
            "Pluralia tantum",
            "Nouns",
            "Lemmas"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "67 33",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "72 28",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1990, John F. Witte, William H. Clune, Choice and Control in American Education - Volume 2, →ISBN, page 217:",
          "text": "The current discussion of choice in education has been driven by this dueling banjos mentality in which scholars and other intellectual entrepreneurs compete for public and intellectual attention by describing the conditions they want to create.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, James Schefter, All Corvettes Are Red, →ISBN, page 311:",
          "text": "Their tools were computers and when three or four engineers surrounded a car and plugged in, the scene wasn't dueling banjos. It was dueling laptops.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Walt Harrington, The Beholder's Eye, →ISBN, page 111:",
          "text": "The nurse's fingers are pressing dental dough into my lower incisors, and she and the doctor are playing dueling banjos with funny stories about their kids, when in walks another dentist, dropping by to say hello.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Ted Lundrigan, Grouse and Lesser Gods, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Stick to music that has lots of harmony, and if you ever meet your mirror image, don't try to out-pick him and don't take him grouse hunting. It becomes dueling banjos.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A contest of skill in which two people try to top each other's offerings, especially one involving musical ability."
      ],
      "id": "en-dueling_banjos-en-noun-6jHJxrvP",
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1998, David Colin Crass, The Southern Colonial Backcountry, →ISBN, page 162:",
          "text": "The name \"Appalachia\" evokes a host of popular images and stereotypes: feuds, individualism, moonshine, subsistence farming, quilting bees, illiteracy, and dueling banjos, to name just a few.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, J. Allen Myers, Spectre: A Collection of Poems and Short Stories, →ISBN, page 66:",
          "text": "My family at times seem to think they are aristocrats, at other times I swear I can hear the muffled sound of dueling banjos.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Dan Imhoff, Farming with the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches.:",
          "text": "“Corn and soybeans are the dueling banjos of conventional agriculture that amount to little more than subsidized erosion,” says Thicke, laughing at his own critique.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Pamela Fagan Hutchins, Hot Flashes and Half Ironmans, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Anyway, Eric kept humming some dueling banjos song and talking about people who marry their first cousins.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something typical of a stereotypic hillbilly; Something characterized by lack of education, poverty, inbreeding or lack of sophistication."
      ],
      "id": "en-dueling_banjos-en-noun-~-ozODJX",
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "dueling banjos"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English pluralia tantum",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From a scene in the 1972 film Deliverance in which a tourist with a guitar gets into a picking contest with a hillbilly on a banjo, both playing parts of the song \"Dueling Banjos\" (originally titled \"Feuding Banjos\") by Arthur \"Guitar Boogie\" Smith.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "dueling banjos pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1990, John F. Witte, William H. Clune, Choice and Control in American Education - Volume 2, →ISBN, page 217:",
          "text": "The current discussion of choice in education has been driven by this dueling banjos mentality in which scholars and other intellectual entrepreneurs compete for public and intellectual attention by describing the conditions they want to create.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, James Schefter, All Corvettes Are Red, →ISBN, page 311:",
          "text": "Their tools were computers and when three or four engineers surrounded a car and plugged in, the scene wasn't dueling banjos. It was dueling laptops.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Walt Harrington, The Beholder's Eye, →ISBN, page 111:",
          "text": "The nurse's fingers are pressing dental dough into my lower incisors, and she and the doctor are playing dueling banjos with funny stories about their kids, when in walks another dentist, dropping by to say hello.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Ted Lundrigan, Grouse and Lesser Gods, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Stick to music that has lots of harmony, and if you ever meet your mirror image, don't try to out-pick him and don't take him grouse hunting. It becomes dueling banjos.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A contest of skill in which two people try to top each other's offerings, especially one involving musical ability."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1998, David Colin Crass, The Southern Colonial Backcountry, →ISBN, page 162:",
          "text": "The name \"Appalachia\" evokes a host of popular images and stereotypes: feuds, individualism, moonshine, subsistence farming, quilting bees, illiteracy, and dueling banjos, to name just a few.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, J. Allen Myers, Spectre: A Collection of Poems and Short Stories, →ISBN, page 66:",
          "text": "My family at times seem to think they are aristocrats, at other times I swear I can hear the muffled sound of dueling banjos.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Dan Imhoff, Farming with the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches.:",
          "text": "“Corn and soybeans are the dueling banjos of conventional agriculture that amount to little more than subsidized erosion,” says Thicke, laughing at his own critique.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Pamela Fagan Hutchins, Hot Flashes and Half Ironmans, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Anyway, Eric kept humming some dueling banjos song and talking about people who marry their first cousins.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something typical of a stereotypic hillbilly; Something characterized by lack of education, poverty, inbreeding or lack of sophistication."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "dueling banjos"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-10-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (9f93753 and c1a3a36). 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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