"lunatics have taken over the asylum" meaning in English

See lunatics have taken over the asylum in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: En-au-lunatics have taken over the asylum.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: Said to originate in a 1919 remark by Richard A. Rowland about the founding of United Artists. Perhaps an allusion to the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, first published 1845. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase|head=(the) lunatics have taken over the asylum}} (the) lunatics have taken over the asylum
  1. Said of a situation in which those in charge are incapable of handling their responsibilities, and should rather be put under scrutiny themselves. Wikipedia link: Edgar Allan Poe, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether Synonyms: inmates running the asylum, lunatics taking over the asylum, inmates have taken over the asylum, inmates taking over the asylum, lunatics running the asylum

Download JSON data for lunatics have taken over the asylum meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Said to originate in a 1919 remark by Richard A. Rowland about the founding of United Artists. Perhaps an allusion to the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, first published 1845.",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said of a situation in which those in charge are incapable of handling their responsibilities, and should rather be put under scrutiny themselves."
      ],
      "id": "en-lunatics_have_taken_over_the_asylum-en-phrase-olqVYfXi",
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      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "inmates running the asylum"
        },
        {
          "word": "lunatics taking over the asylum"
        },
        {
          "word": "inmates have taken over the asylum"
        },
        {
          "word": "inmates taking over the asylum"
        },
        {
          "word": "lunatics running the asylum"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
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        "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether"
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      "audio": "En-au-lunatics have taken over the asylum.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/18/En-au-lunatics_have_taken_over_the_asylum.ogg/En-au-lunatics_have_taken_over_the_asylum.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/En-au-lunatics_have_taken_over_the_asylum.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "lunatics have taken over the asylum"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Said to originate in a 1919 remark by Richard A. Rowland about the founding of United Artists. Perhaps an allusion to the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, first published 1845.",
  "head_templates": [
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        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "(the) lunatics have taken over the asylum"
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      "expansion": "(the) lunatics have taken over the asylum",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
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        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
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        "English phrases",
        "English terms with audio links",
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said of a situation in which those in charge are incapable of handling their responsibilities, and should rather be put under scrutiny themselves."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "situation",
          "situation"
        ],
        [
          "in charge",
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        [
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        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
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  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-lunatics have taken over the asylum.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/18/En-au-lunatics_have_taken_over_the_asylum.ogg/En-au-lunatics_have_taken_over_the_asylum.ogg.mp3",
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      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "inmates running the asylum"
    },
    {
      "word": "lunatics taking over the asylum"
    },
    {
      "word": "inmates have taken over the asylum"
    },
    {
      "word": "inmates taking over the asylum"
    },
    {
      "word": "lunatics running the asylum"
    }
  ],
  "word": "lunatics have taken over the asylum"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.