"federal case" meaning in English

See federal case in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: federal cases [plural]
Etymology: In the United States of America, courts with federal jurisdiction generally are for much more serious offenses than those whose cases are heard by local courts. Head templates: {{en-noun}} federal case (plural federal cases)
  1. (informal) Any overexaggerated ordeal. Tags: informal
    Sense id: en-federal_case-en-noun-HPT55dMH Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 92 8 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 90 10 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 96 4
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see federal, case. Related terms: make a mountain out of a molehill
    Sense id: en-federal_case-en-noun-xfNci2QS
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms (something over-exaggerated): big deal, big thing, production, meal, song and dance
Disambiguation of 'something over-exaggerated': 54 46

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "In the United States of America, courts with federal jurisdiction generally are for much more serious offenses than those whose cases are heard by local courts.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "federal cases",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "federal case (plural federal cases)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "92 8",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "90 10",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "96 4",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "So I didn't put the toilet seat down — you don't have to make a federal case out of it.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Zachary Klaas, Time Tourists, page 122:",
          "text": "You think I'm some kind of codependent ditz overwhelmed by reality outside of Catholic school, and I'm not supposed to make a federal case out of it?",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any overexaggerated ordeal."
      ],
      "id": "en-federal_case-en-noun-HPT55dMH",
      "links": [
        [
          "overexaggerated",
          "overexaggerated"
        ],
        [
          "ordeal",
          "ordeal"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) Any overexaggerated ordeal."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see federal, case."
      ],
      "id": "en-federal_case-en-noun-xfNci2QS",
      "links": [
        [
          "federal",
          "federal#English"
        ],
        [
          "case",
          "case#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "5 95",
          "word": "make a mountain out of a molehill"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "54 46",
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "big deal"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "54 46",
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "big thing"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "54 46",
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "production"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "54 46",
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "meal"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "54 46",
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "song and dance"
    }
  ],
  "word": "federal case"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "In the United States of America, courts with federal jurisdiction generally are for much more serious offenses than those whose cases are heard by local courts.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "federal cases",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "federal case (plural federal cases)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "make a mountain out of a molehill"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English informal terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "So I didn't put the toilet seat down — you don't have to make a federal case out of it.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Zachary Klaas, Time Tourists, page 122:",
          "text": "You think I'm some kind of codependent ditz overwhelmed by reality outside of Catholic school, and I'm not supposed to make a federal case out of it?",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any overexaggerated ordeal."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "overexaggerated",
          "overexaggerated"
        ],
        [
          "ordeal",
          "ordeal"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) Any overexaggerated ordeal."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see federal, case."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "federal",
          "federal#English"
        ],
        [
          "case",
          "case#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "big deal"
    },
    {
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "big thing"
    },
    {
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "production"
    },
    {
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "meal"
    },
    {
      "sense": "something over-exaggerated",
      "word": "song and dance"
    }
  ],
  "word": "federal case"
}

Download raw JSONL data for federal case meaning in English (1.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.