"hay is for horses" meaning in English

See hay is for horses in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Etymology: From hay being homophonous with hey. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} hay is for horses
  1. (sarcastic) Said as a retort to someone saying hey (any sense of the interjection), used to indicate that the speaker disapproves of the usage of the word "hey", perhaps due to a dislike of informal speech. Tags: sarcastic Synonyms: hey is for horses, hay is for horses and cows
    Sense id: en-hay_is_for_horses-en-phrase-~ukgmVxk Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "etymology_text": "From hay being homophonous with hey.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "hay is for horses",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1731 (date written), Simon Wagstaff [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], “Dialogue I”, in A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, […], London: […] B[enjamin] Motte […], published 1738, →OCLC, page 107:",
          "text": "Neverout. Hay, Madam, did you call me? / Miſs. Hay; why, Hay is for Horſes.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said as a retort to someone saying hey (any sense of the interjection), used to indicate that the speaker disapproves of the usage of the word \"hey\", perhaps due to a dislike of informal speech."
      ],
      "id": "en-hay_is_for_horses-en-phrase-~ukgmVxk",
      "links": [
        [
          "sarcastic",
          "sarcastic"
        ],
        [
          "retort",
          "retort#English"
        ],
        [
          "hey",
          "hey#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(sarcastic) Said as a retort to someone saying hey (any sense of the interjection), used to indicate that the speaker disapproves of the usage of the word \"hey\", perhaps due to a dislike of informal speech."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hey is for horses"
        },
        {
          "word": "hay is for horses and cows"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "sarcastic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "hay is for horses"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From hay being homophonous with hey.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "hay is for horses",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English sarcastic terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1731 (date written), Simon Wagstaff [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], “Dialogue I”, in A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, […], London: […] B[enjamin] Motte […], published 1738, →OCLC, page 107:",
          "text": "Neverout. Hay, Madam, did you call me? / Miſs. Hay; why, Hay is for Horſes.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said as a retort to someone saying hey (any sense of the interjection), used to indicate that the speaker disapproves of the usage of the word \"hey\", perhaps due to a dislike of informal speech."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sarcastic",
          "sarcastic"
        ],
        [
          "retort",
          "retort#English"
        ],
        [
          "hey",
          "hey#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(sarcastic) Said as a retort to someone saying hey (any sense of the interjection), used to indicate that the speaker disapproves of the usage of the word \"hey\", perhaps due to a dislike of informal speech."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "sarcastic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "hey is for horses"
    },
    {
      "word": "hay is for horses and cows"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hay is for horses"
}

Download raw JSONL data for hay is for horses meaning in English (1.5kB)


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.