"high jinks" meaning in English

See high jinks in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈhaɪ d͡ʒɪŋks/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈhaɪ ˌd͡ʒɪŋks/ [General-American] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-high jinks.wav
Etymology: Probably related to jink (“(verb) to make a quick evasive turn; to whirl about when dancing, to dance; (noun) a quick evasive turn”), probably originally onomatopoeic, expressing quick movement. Etymology templates: {{sup|1}} ¹, {{glossary|onomatopoeic}} onomatopoeic, {{sup|1}} ¹ Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} high jinks pl (plural only)
  1. (Scotland, games, historical) An old Scottish parlour game in which people were chosen, usually by throwing dice, to perform some humorous act or drink a large amount of an alcoholic beverage, with a forfeit if they were unable to do so. Tags: Scotland, historical, plural, plural-only Categories (topical): Games Translations (old Scottish parlour game): high jinks (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-high_jinks-en-noun-RSjBjO-C Categories (other): Scottish English, English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Estonian translations, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with Greek translations, Terms with Irish translations, Terms with Polish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 34 32 33 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 48 26 27 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 35 33 33 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 34 33 33 Disambiguation of Terms with Estonian translations: 48 28 24 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 50 25 25 Disambiguation of Terms with Greek translations: 40 30 30 Disambiguation of Terms with Irish translations: 53 23 24 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 49 25 26 Topics: games Disambiguation of 'old Scottish parlour game': 93 4 3
  2. (by extension)
    Boisterous activity or behaviour; lively fun.
    Tags: broadly, plural, plural-only Synonyms: jinks [archaic], highjinks, hijinks, hi-jinks, hijinx, hi-jinx, hijinxs Related terms: prank Translations (boisterous activity or behaviour, especially in sport): ilonpito (Finnish), rieha (Finnish), τρέλες (tréles) [feminine] (Greek), rancás [masculine] (Irish), głupawka [feminine, informal] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-high_jinks-en-noun-t0KXRZil Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 34 32 33 Disambiguation of English pluralia tantum: 30 44 26 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 35 33 33 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 34 33 33 Disambiguation of 'boisterous activity or behaviour, especially in sport': 11 64 25
  3. (by extension)
    Tricky or waggish behaviour; mischief.
    Tags: broadly, plural, plural-only Synonyms: commess [Caribbean], shenanigans Translations (tricky or waggish behaviour — see also shenanigans): mürgel (Estonian), metkuilu (Finnish), pelleily (Finnish), błazenada [derogatory, feminine, literary] (Polish), błazeństwo [derogatory, literary, neuter] (Polish), błaznota [archaic, derogatory, feminine, rare] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-high_jinks-en-noun-9bP7SgC3 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 34 32 33 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 35 33 33 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 34 33 33 Disambiguation of 'tricky or waggish behaviour — see also shenanigans': 17 20 63

Alternative forms

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          "text": "[T]he frolicsome company had begun to practise the ancient and now forgotten pastime of High Jinks. This game was played in several different ways. Most frequently the dice were thrown by the company, and those upon whom the lot fell were obliged to assume and maintain, for a time, a certain fictitious character, or to repeat a certain number of fescennine verses in a particular order. If they departed from the characters assigned, or if their memory proved treacherous in the repetition, they incurred forfeits, which were either compounded for by swallowing an additional bumper, or by paying a small sum towards the reckoning.",
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          "text": "Only one tutor has rooms here; and I should think, if he's a reading man, it wont be for long before he clears out; for all sorts of high jinks go on on the grass-plot, and the row on the staircases is often as bad, and not half so respectable, as it used to be in the middle passage in the last week of the half year.",
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          "text": "But given the funny hats and juvenile hijinx, it's hard to buy the play's more serious intentions.",
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          "ref": "2011, Kim Newman, “Postscript: The Post-modern Horror Film”, in Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen since the 1960s, revised edition, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, part 1 (Nightmare Movies), page 288:",
          "text": "Day of the Dead stretches the zombie film just about as far as it can go – and the film [George Andrew] Romero wanted to make could have been even more challenging – but the horror movie audience is more interested in the partying hi-jinx of trendy monsters like [Dan] O'Bannon's funky zombies, Freddy Krueger or Herbert West.",
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          "text": "High Jinks! High Jinks! High Jinks! The haggis has puttin' out the fire, and sealed up the boiler—",
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          "ref": "1912, Lester Chadwick [pseudonym; Howard Roger Garis], “Hitting a Teacher”, in Baseball Joe on the School Nine: Or Pitching for the Blue Banner (Baseball Joe Series; 2), New York, N.Y.: Cupples & Leon Company, →OCLC, page 3:",
          "text": "That's what happened to me the last time you fired a high snowball. Peaches. That's why I didn't want you to try another while I'm around. You wait until I'm off the campus if you've got to indulge in high jinks.",
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          "ref": "1971, Don Pendleton, Chicago Wipeout (The Executioner; book 8), New York, N.Y.: Open Road Integrated Media, published 2014, →ISBN:",
          "text": "It was a face familiar to millions of Americans around the country, an almost intimate face to anyone who'd ever watched a televised news program or any other national hi-jinks from Chicago.",
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          "ref": "2005, Scott J. Evans, “Evil Deeds”, in Breathe Deep the Passing Wind, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Those bastards hadn't left the school and gone back to their hi-jinks like we thought. Not at all. They'd been looking for us, eager to bash our brains in.",
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          "ref": "2009, Taylor Branch, “Yeltsin and the Gingrich Revolution”, in The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, London, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 195:",
          "text": "Apparently the man had a reputation for hi[-]jinks, such as filing fake flight plans to deceive [Bill] Clinton's barnstorming rivals.",
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          "ref": "2014 August 27, Kent Bell, “Hi-jinx Stories”, in Look Ma, No Hands, No Legs Either, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 41:",
          "text": "Even though I have no arms or legs I did put my mom through some tough times. I did my share of rebellion and hi-jinx.",
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          "ref": "2018, L. J. McLeod, “The Perils of Having a Roommate Obsessed with the Occult on Hallows’ Eve”, in T. C. Phillips, editor, Behold the Nightmare: Special Halloween Issue (Specul8: Central Queensland Journal of Speculative Fiction), Rockhampton, Qld.: Specul8 Publishing, →ISBN, page 73:",
          "text": "You know those movies where the goofy housemate reads a book of spells on Halloween and hijinxs ensue?",
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          "ref": "2019 August 14, A. A. Dowd, “Good Boys Puts a Tween Spin on the R-rated Teen Comedy, to Mostly Funny Effect”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2021-03-04:",
          "text": "One could argue, of course, that most comedies about the risqué misadventures of teenagers are actually pretty wholesome. Horny hits like American Pie and last year's Blockers are, at heart, sweet coming-of-age stories, secretly reassuring everyone that the kids are all right—that no matter how many f-bombs they drop, no matter how raunchy their MPAA-antagonizing hijinks get, they're really just fumbling their inexperienced way through normal rites of passage.",
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          "old",
          "old#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "Scottish",
          "Scottish#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "parlour game",
          "parlour game"
        ],
        [
          "people",
          "person#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "chosen",
          "choose"
        ],
        [
          "throwing",
          "throw#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "dice",
          "die#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "perform",
          "perform#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "act",
          "act#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "drink",
          "drink#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "large",
          "large#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "amount",
          "amount#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "alcoholic",
          "alcoholic#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "beverage",
          "beverage"
        ],
        [
          "forfeit",
          "forfeit#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "unable",
          "unable"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Scotland, games, historical) An old Scottish parlour game in which people were chosen, usually by throwing dice, to perform some humorous act or drink a large amount of an alcoholic beverage, with a forfeit if they were unable to do so."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Scotland",
        "historical",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "games"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], “St. Ambrose’s College”, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], part 1st, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC, page 10:",
          "text": "Only one tutor has rooms here; and I should think, if he's a reading man, it wont be for long before he clears out; for all sorts of high jinks go on on the grass-plot, and the row on the staircases is often as bad, and not half so respectable, as it used to be in the middle passage in the last week of the half year.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988 January 15, Tom Boeker, “A Night at Dykes Who Date/Crusaders [theatre review]”, in Chicago Reader, Chicago, Ill.: Chicago Reader, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-10-26:",
          "text": "But given the funny hats and juvenile hijinx, it's hard to buy the play's more serious intentions.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Kim Newman, “Postscript: The Post-modern Horror Film”, in Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen since the 1960s, revised edition, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, part 1 (Nightmare Movies), page 288:",
          "text": "Day of the Dead stretches the zombie film just about as far as it can go – and the film [George Andrew] Romero wanted to make could have been even more challenging – but the horror movie audience is more interested in the partying hi-jinx of trendy monsters like [Dan] O'Bannon's funky zombies, Freddy Krueger or Herbert West.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Boisterous activity or behaviour; lively fun."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Boisterous",
          "boisterous"
        ],
        [
          "activity",
          "activity"
        ],
        [
          "behaviour",
          "behaviour"
        ],
        [
          "lively",
          "lively"
        ],
        [
          "fun",
          "fun#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension)",
        "Boisterous activity or behaviour; lively fun."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "archaic"
          ],
          "word": "jinks"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1828 December, [John Wilson], “Noctes Ambrosianae. No. XL.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume XXIV, number CXLVI, part I, Edinburgh: William Blackwood; London: T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 690:",
          "text": "High Jinks! High Jinks! High Jinks! The haggis has puttin' out the fire, and sealed up the boiler—",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1912, Lester Chadwick [pseudonym; Howard Roger Garis], “Hitting a Teacher”, in Baseball Joe on the School Nine: Or Pitching for the Blue Banner (Baseball Joe Series; 2), New York, N.Y.: Cupples & Leon Company, →OCLC, page 3:",
          "text": "That's what happened to me the last time you fired a high snowball. Peaches. That's why I didn't want you to try another while I'm around. You wait until I'm off the campus if you've got to indulge in high jinks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1971, Don Pendleton, Chicago Wipeout (The Executioner; book 8), New York, N.Y.: Open Road Integrated Media, published 2014, →ISBN:",
          "text": "It was a face familiar to millions of Americans around the country, an almost intimate face to anyone who'd ever watched a televised news program or any other national hi-jinks from Chicago.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Scott J. Evans, “Evil Deeds”, in Breathe Deep the Passing Wind, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Those bastards hadn't left the school and gone back to their hi-jinks like we thought. Not at all. They'd been looking for us, eager to bash our brains in.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Taylor Branch, “Yeltsin and the Gingrich Revolution”, in The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, London, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 195:",
          "text": "Apparently the man had a reputation for hi[-]jinks, such as filing fake flight plans to deceive [Bill] Clinton's barnstorming rivals.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 August 27, Kent Bell, “Hi-jinx Stories”, in Look Ma, No Hands, No Legs Either, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 41:",
          "text": "Even though I have no arms or legs I did put my mom through some tough times. I did my share of rebellion and hi-jinx.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, L. J. McLeod, “The Perils of Having a Roommate Obsessed with the Occult on Hallows’ Eve”, in T. C. Phillips, editor, Behold the Nightmare: Special Halloween Issue (Specul8: Central Queensland Journal of Speculative Fiction), Rockhampton, Qld.: Specul8 Publishing, →ISBN, page 73:",
          "text": "You know those movies where the goofy housemate reads a book of spells on Halloween and hijinxs ensue?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 August 14, A. A. Dowd, “Good Boys Puts a Tween Spin on the R-rated Teen Comedy, to Mostly Funny Effect”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2021-03-04:",
          "text": "One could argue, of course, that most comedies about the risqué misadventures of teenagers are actually pretty wholesome. Horny hits like American Pie and last year's Blockers are, at heart, sweet coming-of-age stories, secretly reassuring everyone that the kids are all right—that no matter how many f-bombs they drop, no matter how raunchy their MPAA-antagonizing hijinks get, they're really just fumbling their inexperienced way through normal rites of passage.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Tricky or waggish behaviour; mischief."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Tricky",
          "tricky"
        ],
        [
          "waggish",
          "waggish"
        ],
        [
          "mischief",
          "mischief"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension)",
        "Tricky or waggish behaviour; mischief."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "Caribbean"
          ],
          "word": "commess"
        },
        {
          "word": "shenanigans"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈhaɪ d͡ʒɪŋks/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-high jinks.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7a/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-high_jinks.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-high_jinks.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7a/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-high_jinks.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-high_jinks.wav.ogg"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈhaɪ ˌd͡ʒɪŋks/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "highjinks"
    },
    {
      "word": "hijinks"
    },
    {
      "word": "hi-jinks"
    },
    {
      "word": "hijinx"
    },
    {
      "word": "hi-jinx"
    },
    {
      "word": "hijinxs"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "old Scottish parlour game",
      "word": "high jinks"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "boisterous activity or behaviour, especially in sport",
      "word": "ilonpito"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "boisterous activity or behaviour, especially in sport",
      "word": "rieha"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "tréles",
      "sense": "boisterous activity or behaviour, especially in sport",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "τρέλες"
    },
    {
      "code": "ga",
      "lang": "Irish",
      "sense": "boisterous activity or behaviour, especially in sport",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "rancás"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "boisterous activity or behaviour, especially in sport",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "informal"
      ],
      "word": "głupawka"
    },
    {
      "code": "et",
      "lang": "Estonian",
      "sense": "tricky or waggish behaviour — see also shenanigans",
      "word": "mürgel"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "tricky or waggish behaviour — see also shenanigans",
      "word": "metkuilu"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "tricky or waggish behaviour — see also shenanigans",
      "word": "pelleily"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "tricky or waggish behaviour — see also shenanigans",
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "feminine",
        "literary"
      ],
      "word": "błazenada"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "tricky or waggish behaviour — see also shenanigans",
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "literary",
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "błazeństwo"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "tricky or waggish behaviour — see also shenanigans",
      "tags": [
        "archaic",
        "derogatory",
        "feminine",
        "rare"
      ],
      "word": "błaznota"
    }
  ],
  "word": "high jinks"
}

Download raw JSONL data for high jinks meaning in English (10.9kB)

{
  "called_from": "form_description/20250107",
  "msg": "Form tags without form: desc='plural plural-only', tagsets=[('plural', 'plural-only')]",
  "path": [
    "high jinks"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "high jinks",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (c15a5ce and 5c11237). 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.