"have words" meaning in English

See have words in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-have words.ogg [Australia] Forms: has words [present, singular, third-person], having words [participle, present], had words [participle, past], had words [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> words}} have words (third-person singular simple present has words, present participle having words, simple past and past participle had words)
  1. (idiomatic, of two or more parties) To argue, to have an argument. Tags: idiomatic Translations (to argue): rífast (Icelandic), deila við (Icelandic)
    Sense id: en-have_words-en-verb-gLKCFS~F Disambiguation of 'to argue': 93 7
  2. (idiomatic, of one party, followed by with) To speak sternly, angrily, or in an argumentative manner to. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-have_words-en-verb-512GNP~P Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 22 78

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for have words meaning in English (3.1kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has words",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having words",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had words",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had words",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> words"
      },
      "expansion": "have words (third-person singular simple present has words, present participle having words, simple past and past participle had words)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1920, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 2, in The Little Warrior",
          "text": "\"It's no treat to me to 'and the dishes when the atmosphere's what you might call electric. . . .\"\n\"Did they have words?\"\nParker shook his head impatiently.\n\"That sort don't have words, Ellen. They just sit and goggle.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To argue, to have an argument."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_words-en-verb-gLKCFS~F",
      "links": [
        [
          "argue",
          "argue"
        ],
        [
          "argument",
          "argument"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, of two or more parties) To argue, to have an argument."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of two or more parties"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "is",
          "lang": "Icelandic",
          "sense": "to argue",
          "word": "rífast"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "is",
          "lang": "Icelandic",
          "sense": "to argue",
          "word": "deila við"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "22 78",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1890, George MacDonald, chapter 47, in A Rough Shaking",
          "text": "Clare was for a while protected by the man's unreadiness to have words with his brother, who always took his wife's part.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975 December 8, “Gratton, Toros talk”, in Ottawa Citizen, retrieved 2010-08-24",
          "text": "Gratton has had a series of meetings with Toros president John F. Bassett since he quit the Blues last week after having words with coach Garry Young.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 December 18, Martin Wainwright, “Happy Chip on a natural high”, in guardian.co.uk, retrieved 2010-08-24",
          "text": "\"This man is highly irresponsible,\" a spokeswoman tells the Post. \"We definitely want to have words with him.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To speak sternly, angrily, or in an argumentative manner to."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_words-en-verb-512GNP~P",
      "links": [
        [
          "with",
          "with"
        ],
        [
          "speak",
          "speak"
        ],
        [
          "stern",
          "stern"
        ],
        [
          "angrily",
          "angrily"
        ],
        [
          "argumentative",
          "argumentative"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, of one party, followed by with) To speak sternly, angrily, or in an argumentative manner to."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "followed by with",
        "of one party"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have words.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/33/En-au-have_words.ogg/En-au-have_words.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/En-au-have_words.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have words"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has words",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having words",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had words",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had words",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> words"
      },
      "expansion": "have words (third-person singular simple present has words, present participle having words, simple past and past participle had words)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1920, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 2, in The Little Warrior",
          "text": "\"It's no treat to me to 'and the dishes when the atmosphere's what you might call electric. . . .\"\n\"Did they have words?\"\nParker shook his head impatiently.\n\"That sort don't have words, Ellen. They just sit and goggle.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To argue, to have an argument."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "argue",
          "argue"
        ],
        [
          "argument",
          "argument"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, of two or more parties) To argue, to have an argument."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of two or more parties"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1890, George MacDonald, chapter 47, in A Rough Shaking",
          "text": "Clare was for a while protected by the man's unreadiness to have words with his brother, who always took his wife's part.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975 December 8, “Gratton, Toros talk”, in Ottawa Citizen, retrieved 2010-08-24",
          "text": "Gratton has had a series of meetings with Toros president John F. Bassett since he quit the Blues last week after having words with coach Garry Young.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 December 18, Martin Wainwright, “Happy Chip on a natural high”, in guardian.co.uk, retrieved 2010-08-24",
          "text": "\"This man is highly irresponsible,\" a spokeswoman tells the Post. \"We definitely want to have words with him.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To speak sternly, angrily, or in an argumentative manner to."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "with",
          "with"
        ],
        [
          "speak",
          "speak"
        ],
        [
          "stern",
          "stern"
        ],
        [
          "angrily",
          "angrily"
        ],
        [
          "argumentative",
          "argumentative"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, of one party, followed by with) To speak sternly, angrily, or in an argumentative manner to."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "followed by with",
        "of one party"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have words.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/33/En-au-have_words.ogg/En-au-have_words.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/En-au-have_words.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "to argue",
      "word": "rífast"
    },
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "to argue",
      "word": "deila við"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have words"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.