See famous last words in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for famous last words meaning in English (3.0kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "famous last word",
"tags": [
"singular"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "p",
"head": "famous last words",
"sg": "famous last word"
},
"expansion": "famous last words pl (normally plural, singular famous last word)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1908, \"“Don't Give Up The Ship.”,\" New York Times, 5 Jan. (retrieved 2 Oct 2010)",
"text": "Lawrence died defending his vessel and his famous last words, \"Don't give up the ship,\" have been familiar to every schoolboy."
},
{
"ref": "1996, Jane Irwin, editor, George Eliot's Daniel Deronda Notebooks, page 367",
"text": "When Arria's husband was hesitating to kill himself, she stabbed herself with his dagger, to demonstrate to him how to accomplish a noble suicide. Her famous last words—Paete, non dolet [\"Paetus, it does not hurt!\"].",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A notable final utterance before death, especially one made by a celebrity or historical figure."
],
"id": "en-famous_last_words-en-noun-QlvjTRsq",
"links": [
[
"notable",
"notable"
],
[
"utterance",
"utterance"
],
[
"celebrity",
"celebrity"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(literally) A notable final utterance before death, especially one made by a celebrity or historical figure."
],
"tags": [
"literally",
"plural",
"plural-normally"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "18 82",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "24 76",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English pluralia tantum",
"parents": [
"Pluralia tantum",
"Nouns",
"Lemmas"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1986 June 9, Janice Castro et al., “The Price Was Finally Right”, in Time",
"text": "Says one Sperry product executive: \"As a manager, there is almost nothing you can do to get fired here.\" Considering the new circumstances, those could be famous last words.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1989, Danielle Steele, Season of Passion, page 246",
"text": "\"But Nick—I'm never getting married again. I'm serious about that.\"\"Famous last words.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2007, Suzanne Brockmann, Into the Storm, page 417",
"text": "\"Lindsey and Tess are both armed. And Stella and Robert are here. We're ridiculously safe.\"\n\"Those sound like such famous last words,\" Dave said.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A statement which is overly optimistic, results from overconfidence, or lacks realistic foresight."
],
"id": "en-famous_last_words-en-noun-dI1iuK40",
"links": [
[
"sarcasm",
"sarcasm"
],
[
"statement",
"statement"
],
[
"optimistic",
"optimistic"
],
[
"overconfidence",
"overconfidence"
],
[
"realistic",
"realistic"
],
[
"foresight",
"foresight"
]
],
"qualifier": "expressing sarcasm",
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively, expressing sarcasm) A statement which is overly optimistic, results from overconfidence, or lacks realistic foresight."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively",
"plural",
"plural-normally"
]
}
],
"word": "famous last words"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English pluralia tantum"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "famous last word",
"tags": [
"singular"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "p",
"head": "famous last words",
"sg": "famous last word"
},
"expansion": "famous last words pl (normally plural, singular famous last word)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1908, \"“Don't Give Up The Ship.”,\" New York Times, 5 Jan. (retrieved 2 Oct 2010)",
"text": "Lawrence died defending his vessel and his famous last words, \"Don't give up the ship,\" have been familiar to every schoolboy."
},
{
"ref": "1996, Jane Irwin, editor, George Eliot's Daniel Deronda Notebooks, page 367",
"text": "When Arria's husband was hesitating to kill himself, she stabbed herself with his dagger, to demonstrate to him how to accomplish a noble suicide. Her famous last words—Paete, non dolet [\"Paetus, it does not hurt!\"].",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A notable final utterance before death, especially one made by a celebrity or historical figure."
],
"links": [
[
"notable",
"notable"
],
[
"utterance",
"utterance"
],
[
"celebrity",
"celebrity"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(literally) A notable final utterance before death, especially one made by a celebrity or historical figure."
],
"tags": [
"literally",
"plural",
"plural-normally"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1986 June 9, Janice Castro et al., “The Price Was Finally Right”, in Time",
"text": "Says one Sperry product executive: \"As a manager, there is almost nothing you can do to get fired here.\" Considering the new circumstances, those could be famous last words.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1989, Danielle Steele, Season of Passion, page 246",
"text": "\"But Nick—I'm never getting married again. I'm serious about that.\"\"Famous last words.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2007, Suzanne Brockmann, Into the Storm, page 417",
"text": "\"Lindsey and Tess are both armed. And Stella and Robert are here. We're ridiculously safe.\"\n\"Those sound like such famous last words,\" Dave said.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A statement which is overly optimistic, results from overconfidence, or lacks realistic foresight."
],
"links": [
[
"sarcasm",
"sarcasm"
],
[
"statement",
"statement"
],
[
"optimistic",
"optimistic"
],
[
"overconfidence",
"overconfidence"
],
[
"realistic",
"realistic"
],
[
"foresight",
"foresight"
]
],
"qualifier": "expressing sarcasm",
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively, expressing sarcasm) A statement which is overly optimistic, results from overconfidence, or lacks realistic foresight."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively",
"plural",
"plural-normally"
]
}
],
"word": "famous last words"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.