"mall ninja" meaning in English

See mall ninja in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-mall ninja.wav [US] Forms: mall ninjas [plural]
Etymology: Originated in several 2000-2001 discussions on Internet forums devoted to firearms, in which a poster bragged about his firearm expertise while claiming to be a "Sergeant of a three-man Rapid Tactical Force" at an American mall, trained in "ninjitsu". He was soon nicknamed "the mall ninja". Head templates: {{en-noun}} mall ninja (plural mall ninjas)
  1. (derogatory, informal) A person who brags about being a weaponry expert and connoisseur, but exposes their ignorance by making improbable claims about their experience or skill. Tags: derogatory, informal Categories (topical): People Related terms: CDI factor, Tacticool

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for mall ninja meaning in English (3.9kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Originated in several 2000-2001 discussions on Internet forums devoted to firearms, in which a poster bragged about his firearm expertise while claiming to be a \"Sergeant of a three-man Rapid Tactical Force\" at an American mall, trained in \"ninjitsu\". He was soon nicknamed \"the mall ninja\".",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "mall ninjas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "mall ninja (plural mall ninjas)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2002 September 13, \"Rawhide Clyde\", “Re: Are Striders worth their price?”, in rec.knives (Usenet)",
          "text": "I own a Strider [knife]. Nope, I'm not a mall ninja or secret squirrel but it gives me pleasure to own them.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 April 30, Mike Kelly, “Re: I got to stay out of the politic groups...”, in talk.politics.guns (Usenet)",
          "text": "I too abandoned those groups. Granted, I was one who had my mind made up for the most part, but not entirely. I just grew frustrated with the kindergarten sophistry, mall ninja bravado, and so on.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Patrick Sweeney, The Gun Digest Book of the AR-15, Volume 2, Gun Digest Books, page 219",
          "text": "No big deal, unless you're anal about being mil-spec \"correct\" to impress your mall ninja buddies.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 March 6, \"WuzYoungOnceToo\", “Re: Hey pickle! try again”, in rec.gambling.poker (Usenet)",
          "text": "You know...like the delusion that you were ever a LEO [law enforcement officer], while you sound far more like a frustrated mall ninja.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Bryce M. Towsley, Prepper Guns, Skyhorse Publishing",
          "text": "A compound bow is much better [than a crossbow] in every respect, expect maybe for exciting those mall ninjas who, when they are not watching The Walking Dead, hide in their mom's basement and fantasize about Lara Croft.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who brags about being a weaponry expert and connoisseur, but exposes their ignorance by making improbable claims about their experience or skill."
      ],
      "id": "en-mall_ninja-en-noun-Hg-inIim",
      "links": [
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          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
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        [
          "brag",
          "brag"
        ],
        [
          "weaponry",
          "weaponry"
        ],
        [
          "expert",
          "expert"
        ],
        [
          "connoisseur",
          "connoisseur"
        ],
        [
          "expose",
          "expose"
        ],
        [
          "ignorance",
          "ignorance"
        ],
        [
          "improbable",
          "improbable"
        ],
        [
          "claim",
          "claim"
        ],
        [
          "experience",
          "experience"
        ],
        [
          "skill",
          "skill"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory, informal) A person who brags about being a weaponry expert and connoisseur, but exposes their ignorance by making improbable claims about their experience or skill."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "CDI factor"
        },
        {
          "word": "Tacticool"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-mall ninja.wav",
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      "tags": [
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  "word": "mall ninja"
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{
  "etymology_text": "Originated in several 2000-2001 discussions on Internet forums devoted to firearms, in which a poster bragged about his firearm expertise while claiming to be a \"Sergeant of a three-man Rapid Tactical Force\" at an American mall, trained in \"ninjitsu\". He was soon nicknamed \"the mall ninja\".",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "mall ninjas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "mall ninja (plural mall ninjas)",
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    }
  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "CDI factor"
    },
    {
      "word": "Tacticool"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
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        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:People"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2002 September 13, \"Rawhide Clyde\", “Re: Are Striders worth their price?”, in rec.knives (Usenet)",
          "text": "I own a Strider [knife]. Nope, I'm not a mall ninja or secret squirrel but it gives me pleasure to own them.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 April 30, Mike Kelly, “Re: I got to stay out of the politic groups...”, in talk.politics.guns (Usenet)",
          "text": "I too abandoned those groups. Granted, I was one who had my mind made up for the most part, but not entirely. I just grew frustrated with the kindergarten sophistry, mall ninja bravado, and so on.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Patrick Sweeney, The Gun Digest Book of the AR-15, Volume 2, Gun Digest Books, page 219",
          "text": "No big deal, unless you're anal about being mil-spec \"correct\" to impress your mall ninja buddies.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 March 6, \"WuzYoungOnceToo\", “Re: Hey pickle! try again”, in rec.gambling.poker (Usenet)",
          "text": "You know...like the delusion that you were ever a LEO [law enforcement officer], while you sound far more like a frustrated mall ninja.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Bryce M. Towsley, Prepper Guns, Skyhorse Publishing",
          "text": "A compound bow is much better [than a crossbow] in every respect, expect maybe for exciting those mall ninjas who, when they are not watching The Walking Dead, hide in their mom's basement and fantasize about Lara Croft.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who brags about being a weaponry expert and connoisseur, but exposes their ignorance by making improbable claims about their experience or skill."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "brag",
          "brag"
        ],
        [
          "weaponry",
          "weaponry"
        ],
        [
          "expert",
          "expert"
        ],
        [
          "connoisseur",
          "connoisseur"
        ],
        [
          "expose",
          "expose"
        ],
        [
          "ignorance",
          "ignorance"
        ],
        [
          "improbable",
          "improbable"
        ],
        [
          "claim",
          "claim"
        ],
        [
          "experience",
          "experience"
        ],
        [
          "skill",
          "skill"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory, informal) A person who brags about being a weaponry expert and connoisseur, but exposes their ignorance by making improbable claims about their experience or skill."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-mall ninja.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d6/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-mall_ninja.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-mall_ninja.wav.mp3",
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      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (US)"
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  "word": "mall ninja"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 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.