"if it's yellow let it mellow" meaning in English

See if it's yellow let it mellow in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Etymology: A short version of "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down". Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} if it's yellow let it mellow
  1. In order to save water, do not flush the toilet every time you urinate.
    Sense id: en-if_it's_yellow_let_it_mellow-en-phrase-dx8zjcHa Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for if it's yellow let it mellow meaning in English (1.5kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "A short version of \"if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down\".",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "if it's yellow let it mellow",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011, Kirsty McKay, Undead",
          "text": "It's a tad gross that I haven't been able to flush, but if it's yellow, let it mellow ... and run like hell-o.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Laura Portwood-Stacer, Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism, page 29",
          "text": "He went on to explain: I'm not gonna waste like a gallon and a half of water that we're stealing from the Colorado River just cuz I took a pee, you know like, 'if it's yellow let it mellow,' you know, don't flush it.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Bo Bennett, Logically Fallacious",
          "text": "Explanation: No! I did not have to follow the, “if it's yellow, let it mellow” rule—in fact, if I did follow that rule I would probably still be single.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "In order to save water, do not flush the toilet every time you urinate."
      ],
      "id": "en-if_it's_yellow_let_it_mellow-en-phrase-dx8zjcHa",
      "links": [
        [
          "save",
          "save"
        ],
        [
          "water",
          "water"
        ],
        [
          "flush",
          "flush"
        ],
        [
          "toilet",
          "toilet"
        ],
        [
          "urinate",
          "urinate"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "if it's yellow let it mellow"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "A short version of \"if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down\".",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "if it's yellow let it mellow",
      "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 terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011, Kirsty McKay, Undead",
          "text": "It's a tad gross that I haven't been able to flush, but if it's yellow, let it mellow ... and run like hell-o.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Laura Portwood-Stacer, Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism, page 29",
          "text": "He went on to explain: I'm not gonna waste like a gallon and a half of water that we're stealing from the Colorado River just cuz I took a pee, you know like, 'if it's yellow let it mellow,' you know, don't flush it.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Bo Bennett, Logically Fallacious",
          "text": "Explanation: No! I did not have to follow the, “if it's yellow, let it mellow” rule—in fact, if I did follow that rule I would probably still be single.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "In order to save water, do not flush the toilet every time you urinate."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "save",
          "save"
        ],
        [
          "water",
          "water"
        ],
        [
          "flush",
          "flush"
        ],
        [
          "toilet",
          "toilet"
        ],
        [
          "urinate",
          "urinate"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "if it's yellow let it mellow"
}

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.