See keep a civil tongue in one's head in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for keep a civil tongue in one's head meaning in English (3.2kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "keeps a civil tongue in one's head",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "keeping a civil tongue in one's head",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "kept a civil tongue in one's head",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "kept a civil tongue in one's head",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "keep<,,kept> a civil tongue in one's head"
},
"expansion": "keep a civil tongue in one's head (third-person singular simple present keeps a civil tongue in one's head, present participle keeping a civil tongue in one's head, simple past and past participle kept a civil tongue in one's head)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
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"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1875, Horatio Alger, chapter 20, in Herbert Carter's Legacy",
"text": "\"I've had enough of that kind of talk. I don't intend to submit to your impudence. When you speak to me keep a civil tongue in your head.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 13, in Tarzan of the Apes",
"text": "\"Keep a civil tongue in your head,\" cried the young man, his face paling in anger, at the insulting tone of the sailor.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1943 March 25, Dorothy Dix, “Dorothy Dix”, in Spartanburg Herald, retrieved 2016-01-24, page 5",
"text": "If every high-tempered man knew that his wife would leave him if he dared curse her because the coffee was cold, or dinner fifteen minutes late, he would keep a civil tongue in his head.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012 January 15, Nick Cohen, “Viscount Astor, you really are a class apart”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 2016-01-23",
"text": "After Helena Bonham Carter, the great-granddaughter of Herbert Asquith, complained that for all her advantages and beauty directors would not hire her because she was not \"trendily working class\", an exasperated Kathy Burke found the effort of keeping a civil tongue in her head too much to bear. \"As a lifelong member of the non-pretty working classes,\" she told Time Out, \"I would like to say to Helena Bonham Carter: shut up you stupid cunt.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To maintain a polite manner of speaking."
],
"id": "en-keep_a_civil_tongue_in_one's_head-en-verb-JNbhC4C1",
"links": [
[
"polite",
"polite"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To maintain a polite manner of speaking."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "keep a civil tongue"
},
{
"word": "keep a civil tongue in one's mouth"
},
{
"word": "put a civil tongue in one's head"
},
{
"word": "put a civil tongue in one's mouth"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
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"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/15/En-au-keep_a_civil_tongue_in_one%27s_head.ogg/En-au-keep_a_civil_tongue_in_one%27s_head.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/En-au-keep_a_civil_tongue_in_one%27s_head.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "keep a civil tongue in one's head"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "keeps a civil tongue in one's head",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
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]
},
{
"form": "keeping a civil tongue in one's head",
"tags": [
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]
},
{
"form": "kept a civil tongue in one's head",
"tags": [
"participle",
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]
},
{
"form": "kept a civil tongue in one's head",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "keep<,,kept> a civil tongue in one's head"
},
"expansion": "keep a civil tongue in one's head (third-person singular simple present keeps a civil tongue in one's head, present participle keeping a civil tongue in one's head, simple past and past participle kept a civil tongue in one's head)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1875, Horatio Alger, chapter 20, in Herbert Carter's Legacy",
"text": "\"I've had enough of that kind of talk. I don't intend to submit to your impudence. When you speak to me keep a civil tongue in your head.\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 13, in Tarzan of the Apes",
"text": "\"Keep a civil tongue in your head,\" cried the young man, his face paling in anger, at the insulting tone of the sailor.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1943 March 25, Dorothy Dix, “Dorothy Dix”, in Spartanburg Herald, retrieved 2016-01-24, page 5",
"text": "If every high-tempered man knew that his wife would leave him if he dared curse her because the coffee was cold, or dinner fifteen minutes late, he would keep a civil tongue in his head.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012 January 15, Nick Cohen, “Viscount Astor, you really are a class apart”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 2016-01-23",
"text": "After Helena Bonham Carter, the great-granddaughter of Herbert Asquith, complained that for all her advantages and beauty directors would not hire her because she was not \"trendily working class\", an exasperated Kathy Burke found the effort of keeping a civil tongue in her head too much to bear. \"As a lifelong member of the non-pretty working classes,\" she told Time Out, \"I would like to say to Helena Bonham Carter: shut up you stupid cunt.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To maintain a polite manner of speaking."
],
"links": [
[
"polite",
"polite"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To maintain a polite manner of speaking."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-keep a civil tongue in one's head.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/15/En-au-keep_a_civil_tongue_in_one%27s_head.ogg/En-au-keep_a_civil_tongue_in_one%27s_head.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/En-au-keep_a_civil_tongue_in_one%27s_head.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "keep a civil tongue"
},
{
"word": "keep a civil tongue in one's mouth"
},
{
"word": "put a civil tongue in one's head"
},
{
"word": "put a civil tongue in one's mouth"
}
],
"word": "keep a civil tongue in one's head"
}
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.