"fly on the wall" meaning in English

See fly on the wall in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-fly on the wall.ogg Forms: flies on the wall [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|flies on the wall}} fly on the wall (plural flies on the wall)
  1. (idiomatic) A quiet, non-participating, or unseen observer; an eavesdropper or witness. Tags: idiomatic Translations (quiet, non-participating or unseen observer): flue på væggen (Danish), kärpänen katossa (Finnish), petite souris (english: little mouse) (French), Mäuschen (english: little mouse) (German), flue på veggen (Norwegian Bokmål), fluge på veggen (Norwegian Nynorsk), agujero en la pared (english: hole in the wall) (Spanish), fluga på väggen [common-gender] (Swedish)

Inflected forms

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      "form": "flies on the wall",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  "head_templates": [
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        "1": "flies on the wall"
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      "expansion": "fly on the wall (plural flies on the wall)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Norwegian Bokmål translations",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Norwegian Nynorsk translations",
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        },
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          "kind": "other",
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        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1918 August 9, “Clark Would Draft Even Men of 68”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-10-28, page 11:",
          "text": "James W. Gerard, ex-Ambassador to Germany, the first speaker of the evening, said that at that moment he would like to be a fly on the wall of the palace at Potsdam to hear what the Potsdam gang were saying about our soldiers.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A quiet, non-participating, or unseen observer; an eavesdropper or witness."
      ],
      "id": "en-fly_on_the_wall-en-noun-rWCVVNdf",
      "links": [
        [
          "quiet",
          "quiet"
        ],
        [
          "non-",
          "non-"
        ],
        [
          "participating",
          "participating"
        ],
        [
          "observer",
          "observer"
        ],
        [
          "eavesdropper",
          "eavesdropper"
        ],
        [
          "witness",
          "witness"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A quiet, non-participating, or unseen observer; an eavesdropper or witness."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
          "word": "flue på væggen"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
          "word": "kärpänen katossa"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "english": "little mouse",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
          "word": "petite souris"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "english": "little mouse",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
          "word": "Mäuschen"
        },
        {
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
          "word": "flue på veggen"
        },
        {
          "code": "nn",
          "lang": "Norwegian Nynorsk",
          "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
          "word": "fluge på veggen"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "english": "hole in the wall",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
          "word": "agujero en la pared"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "fluga på väggen"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
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    }
  ],
  "word": "fly on the wall"
}
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  "forms": [
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      "form": "flies on the wall",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  ],
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "flies on the wall"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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        "Entries with translation boxes",
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        "Terms with Danish translations",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "Terms with French translations",
        "Terms with German translations",
        "Terms with Norwegian Bokmål translations",
        "Terms with Norwegian Nynorsk translations",
        "Terms with Swedish translations"
      ],
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        {
          "ref": "1918 August 9, “Clark Would Draft Even Men of 68”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-10-28, page 11:",
          "text": "James W. Gerard, ex-Ambassador to Germany, the first speaker of the evening, said that at that moment he would like to be a fly on the wall of the palace at Potsdam to hear what the Potsdam gang were saying about our soldiers.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A quiet, non-participating, or unseen observer; an eavesdropper or witness."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "quiet",
          "quiet"
        ],
        [
          "non-",
          "non-"
        ],
        [
          "participating",
          "participating"
        ],
        [
          "observer",
          "observer"
        ],
        [
          "eavesdropper",
          "eavesdropper"
        ],
        [
          "witness",
          "witness"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A quiet, non-participating, or unseen observer; an eavesdropper or witness."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/En-au-fly_on_the_wall.ogg"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
      "word": "flue på væggen"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
      "word": "kärpänen katossa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "english": "little mouse",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
      "word": "petite souris"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "english": "little mouse",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
      "word": "Mäuschen"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
      "word": "flue på veggen"
    },
    {
      "code": "nn",
      "lang": "Norwegian Nynorsk",
      "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
      "word": "fluge på veggen"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "english": "hole in the wall",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
      "word": "agujero en la pared"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "quiet, non-participating or unseen observer",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "fluga på väggen"
    }
  ],
  "word": "fly on the wall"
}

Download raw JSONL data for fly on the wall meaning in English (2.9kB)


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.