"have the last laugh" meaning in English

See have the last laugh in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-have the last laugh.ogg [Australia] Forms: has the last laugh [present, singular, third-person], having the last laugh [participle, present], had the last laugh [participle, past], had the last laugh [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> the last laugh}} have the last laugh (third-person singular simple present has the last laugh, present participle having the last laugh, simple past and past participle had the last laugh)
  1. (idiomatic) To be vindicated; to triumph despite predicted failure; to find success after defeat or setback. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: get the last laugh Related terms: he who laughs last laughs best, laugh all the way to the bank, laugh on the other side of one's face, the joke is on someone, have the last word
    Sense id: en-have_the_last_laugh-en-verb-Trop6Axk Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for have the last laugh meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has the last laugh",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having the last laugh",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had the last laugh",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had the last laugh",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> the last laugh"
      },
      "expansion": "have the last laugh (third-person singular simple present has the last laugh, present participle having the last laugh, simple past and past participle had the last laugh)",
      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The author had the last laugh over the publishers who had rejected her now best-selling book.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be vindicated; to triumph despite predicted failure; to find success after defeat or setback."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_the_last_laugh-en-verb-Trop6Axk",
      "links": [
        [
          "vindicated",
          "vindicated"
        ],
        [
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          "triumph"
        ],
        [
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        ],
        [
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        ],
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        [
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        [
          "setback",
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be vindicated; to triumph despite predicted failure; to find success after defeat or setback."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "he who laughs last laughs best"
        },
        {
          "word": "laugh all the way to the bank"
        },
        {
          "word": "laugh on the other side of one's face"
        },
        {
          "word": "the joke is on someone"
        },
        {
          "word": "have the last word"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "get the last laugh"
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      "tags": [
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      "audio": "en-au-have the last laugh.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d4/En-au-have_the_last_laugh.ogg/En-au-have_the_last_laugh.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/En-au-have_the_last_laugh.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have the last laugh"
}
{
  "forms": [
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      "form": "has the last laugh",
      "tags": [
        "present",
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    {
      "form": "having the last laugh",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had the last laugh",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had the last laugh",
      "tags": [
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> the last laugh"
      },
      "expansion": "have the last laugh (third-person singular simple present has the last laugh, present participle having the last laugh, simple past and past participle had the last laugh)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "he who laughs last laughs best"
    },
    {
      "word": "laugh all the way to the bank"
    },
    {
      "word": "laugh on the other side of one's face"
    },
    {
      "word": "the joke is on someone"
    },
    {
      "word": "have the last word"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
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        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The author had the last laugh over the publishers who had rejected her now best-selling book.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be vindicated; to triumph despite predicted failure; to find success after defeat or setback."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "vindicated",
          "vindicated"
        ],
        [
          "triumph",
          "triumph"
        ],
        [
          "predicted",
          "predicted"
        ],
        [
          "failure",
          "failure"
        ],
        [
          "success",
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        ],
        [
          "defeat",
          "defeat"
        ],
        [
          "setback",
          "setback"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be vindicated; to triumph despite predicted failure; to find success after defeat or setback."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
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      "audio": "en-au-have the last laugh.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d4/En-au-have_the_last_laugh.ogg/En-au-have_the_last_laugh.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/En-au-have_the_last_laugh.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "get the last laugh"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have the last laugh"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.