"float like a butterfly" meaning in English

See float like a butterfly in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-float like a butterfly.ogg [Australia] Forms: floats like a butterfly [present, singular, third-person], floating like a butterfly [participle, present], floated like a butterfly [participle, past], floated like a butterfly [past]
Etymology: Coined by US boxer Muhammad Ali. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} float like a butterfly (third-person singular simple present floats like a butterfly, present participle floating like a butterfly, simple past and past participle floated like a butterfly)
  1. (colloquial, simile) To move effortlessly and in an agile fashion. Wikipedia link: Muhammad Ali Tags: colloquial Categories (topical): Boxing Related terms: sting like a bee

Download JSON data for float like a butterfly meaning in English (2.1kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by US boxer Muhammad Ali.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "floats like a butterfly",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floating like a butterfly",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floated like a butterfly",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floated like a butterfly",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "float like a butterfly (third-person singular simple present floats like a butterfly, present participle floating like a butterfly, simple past and past participle floated like a butterfly)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Boxing",
          "orig": "en:Boxing",
          "parents": [
            "Sports",
            "Human activity",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
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            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To move effortlessly and in an agile fashion."
      ],
      "id": "en-float_like_a_butterfly-en-verb-B5~5MoiM",
      "links": [
        [
          "effortless",
          "effortless"
        ],
        [
          "agile",
          "agile"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, simile) To move effortlessly and in an agile fashion."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "sting like a bee"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Muhammad Ali"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-float like a butterfly.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ac/En-au-float_like_a_butterfly.ogg/En-au-float_like_a_butterfly.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/En-au-float_like_a_butterfly.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "float like a butterfly"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by US boxer Muhammad Ali.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "floats like a butterfly",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floating like a butterfly",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floated like a butterfly",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floated like a butterfly",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "float like a butterfly (third-person singular simple present floats like a butterfly, present participle floating like a butterfly, simple past and past participle floated like a butterfly)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "sting like a bee"
    }
  ],
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        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English similes",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English verbs",
        "en:Boxing"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To move effortlessly and in an agile fashion."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "effortless",
          "effortless"
        ],
        [
          "agile",
          "agile"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, simile) To move effortlessly and in an agile fashion."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Muhammad Ali"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-float like a butterfly.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ac/En-au-float_like_a_butterfly.ogg/En-au-float_like_a_butterfly.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/En-au-float_like_a_butterfly.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "float like a butterfly"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-17 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-01 using wiktextract (0b52755 and 5cb0836). 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.