"gather dust" meaning in English

See gather dust in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-gather dust.ogg [Australia] Forms: gathers dust [present, singular, third-person], gathering dust [participle, present], gathered dust [participle, past], gathered dust [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} gather dust (third-person singular simple present gathers dust, present participle gathering dust, simple past and past participle gathered dust)
  1. To remain unused for a long period of time. Translations (Translations): verstoffen (Dutch), pölyttyä (Finnish), pölyyntyä (Finnish), prendre la poussière (French), verstauben (German), prendere polvere (Italian), zbierać kurz [imperfective] (Polish), zebrać kurz [perfective] (Polish), пыли́ться (pylítʹsja) [imperfective] (Russian), запыли́ться (zapylítʹsja) [perfective] (Russian)
    Sense id: en-gather_dust-en-verb-cszgIRcG Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for gather dust meaning in English (2.7kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "gathers dust",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gathering dust",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gathered dust",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gathered dust",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "gather dust (third-person singular simple present gathers dust, present participle gathering dust, simple past and past participle gathered dust)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Since he bought the book, it's just been sitting on the bookshelf and gathering dust.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1951 December, Michael Robbins, “John Francis's \"History of the English Railway\"”, in Railway Magazine, page 800",
          "text": "As we contemplate the half-finished arterial roads and electrification plans of our own age, and the town-planning schemes that gather dust in the public libraries, we can admire the drive and action of the railway pioneers.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To remain unused for a long period of time."
      ],
      "id": "en-gather_dust-en-verb-cszgIRcG",
      "links": [
        [
          "unused",
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "verstoffen"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "pölyttyä"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "pölyyntyä"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "prendre la poussière"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "verstauben"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "prendere polvere"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "zbierać kurz"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "perfective"
          ],
          "word": "zebrać kurz"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "pylítʹsja",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "пыли́ться"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "zapylítʹsja",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "perfective"
          ],
          "word": "запыли́ться"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
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      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/36/En-au-gather_dust.ogg/En-au-gather_dust.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/En-au-gather_dust.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "gather dust"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "gathers dust",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gathering dust",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gathered dust",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gathered dust",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "gather dust (third-person singular simple present gathers dust, present participle gathering dust, simple past and past participle gathered dust)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Since he bought the book, it's just been sitting on the bookshelf and gathering dust.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1951 December, Michael Robbins, “John Francis's \"History of the English Railway\"”, in Railway Magazine, page 800",
          "text": "As we contemplate the half-finished arterial roads and electrification plans of our own age, and the town-planning schemes that gather dust in the public libraries, we can admire the drive and action of the railway pioneers.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To remain unused for a long period of time."
      ],
      "links": [
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  "sounds": [
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/En-au-gather_dust.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "verstoffen"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "pölyttyä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "pölyyntyä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "prendre la poussière"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "verstauben"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "prendere polvere"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "zbierać kurz"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "perfective"
      ],
      "word": "zebrać kurz"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "pylítʹsja",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "пыли́ться"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "zapylítʹsja",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "perfective"
      ],
      "word": "запыли́ться"
    }
  ],
  "word": "gather dust"
}

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.