"heads will roll" meaning in English

See heads will roll in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: en-au-heads will roll.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: From the imagery of a head rolling on the ground when a person is decapitated as punishment for a crime. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} heads will roll
  1. (idiomatic) Some people will be fired for incompetence. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: have someone's head, off with someone's head Translations (some people will be fired for incompetence): 人頭落地 (Chinese Mandarin), 人头落地 (réntóu luòdì) (Chinese Mandarin), päitä putoilee (Finnish), des têtes vont tomber (French), fejek fognak hullani (Hungarian), cadranno delle teste (Italian), polecą głowy (Polish), полетят головы (poletjat golovy) (Russian)

Download JSON data for heads will roll meaning in English (2.7kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the imagery of a head rolling on the ground when a person is decapitated as punishment for a crime.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "heads will roll",
      "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": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English sentences",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If this project isn't completed on time, heads will roll.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Some people will be fired for incompetence."
      ],
      "id": "en-heads_will_roll-en-phrase-BwodJ6AN",
      "links": [
        [
          "fired",
          "fire#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "incompetence",
          "incompetence"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Some people will be fired for incompetence."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "have someone's head"
        },
        {
          "word": "off with someone's head"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
          "word": "人頭落地"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "réntóu luòdì",
          "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
          "word": "人头落地"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
          "word": "päitä putoilee"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
          "word": "des têtes vont tomber"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
          "word": "fejek fognak hullani"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
          "word": "cadranno delle teste"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
          "word": "polecą głowy"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "poletjat golovy",
          "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
          "word": "полетят головы"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-heads will roll.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/65/En-au-heads_will_roll.ogg/En-au-heads_will_roll.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/En-au-heads_will_roll.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "heads will roll"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the imagery of a head rolling on the ground when a person is decapitated as punishment for a crime.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "heads will roll",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "have someone's head"
    },
    {
      "word": "off with someone's head"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English sentences",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If this project isn't completed on time, heads will roll.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Some people will be fired for incompetence."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "fired",
          "fire#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "incompetence",
          "incompetence"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Some people will be fired for incompetence."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-heads will roll.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/65/En-au-heads_will_roll.ogg/En-au-heads_will_roll.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/En-au-heads_will_roll.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
      "word": "人頭落地"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "réntóu luòdì",
      "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
      "word": "人头落地"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
      "word": "päitä putoilee"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
      "word": "des têtes vont tomber"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
      "word": "fejek fognak hullani"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
      "word": "cadranno delle teste"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
      "word": "polecą głowy"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "poletjat golovy",
      "sense": "some people will be fired for incompetence",
      "word": "полетят головы"
    }
  ],
  "word": "heads will roll"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 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.