"four-letter" meaning in English

See four-letter in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: Figurative use modelled on four-letter word. Head templates: {{en-adj|?}} four-letter
  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see four-letter: containing four letters.
    Sense id: en-four-letter-en-adj-AdWxL6Rm
  2. Consisting of or characterised by swear words and profanity.
    Sense id: en-four-letter-en-adj-41fSSNgj Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 3 97

Download JSON data for four-letter meaning in English (0.9kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Figurative use modelled on four-letter word.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "four-letter",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see four-letter: containing four letters."
      ],
      "id": "en-four-letter-en-adj-AdWxL6Rm",
      "links": [
        [
          "four-letter",
          "four-letter#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "3 97",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "a four-letter reply, a four-letter insult, a four-letter tirade"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Consisting of or characterised by swear words and profanity."
      ],
      "id": "en-four-letter-en-adj-41fSSNgj",
      "links": [
        [
          "swear word",
          "swear word"
        ],
        [
          "profanity",
          "profanity"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "four-letter"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Figurative use modelled on four-letter word.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "four-letter",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see four-letter: containing four letters."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "four-letter",
          "four-letter#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "a four-letter reply, a four-letter insult, a four-letter tirade"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Consisting of or characterised by swear words and profanity."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "swear word",
          "swear word"
        ],
        [
          "profanity",
          "profanity"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "four-letter"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 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.