"mean streets" meaning in English

See mean streets in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: mean street [singular]
Head templates: {{en-noun|p|sg=mean street}} mean streets pl (normally plural, singular mean street)
  1. (of an urban environment) A district or set of locales in which there is a high incidence of poverty, crime, disrepair, antisocial behavior, or other adverse conditions. Tags: plural, plural-normally
    Sense id: en-mean_streets-en-noun-jlHflKjS Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum

Download JSON data for mean streets meaning in English (2.6kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "mean street",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p",
        "sg": "mean street"
      },
      "expansion": "mean streets pl (normally plural, singular mean street)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English pluralia tantum",
          "parents": [
            "Pluralia tantum",
            "Nouns",
            "Lemmas"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1997 August 21, “Lucky to be alive”, in Lancashire Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2022-04-15",
          "text": "Expectant dog 'Lucky' lived up to her name when a Blackburn woman came to her rescue after being abandoned on the mean streets of Manchester.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 March 4, Buzz Bissinger, “Philadelphia Stories”, in New York Times, retrieved 2022-04-15",
          "text": "In the early 1980s,[…] I was a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer trying to act fearless covering the mean streets of a city with more mean ones than perhaps any in America.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 November 13, Jack Lakey, “The Fixer: City trash bins should be tossed in the garbage, and the old ones brought back”, in The Star, Canada, retrieved 2022-04-15",
          "text": "The city deserves a failing grade for waste bins. […] [W]e’ve noticed an increasing number that are missing plastic side panels, exposing the metal framework and furthering our conclusion that they aren't tough enough for Toronto's mean streets.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 September 4, Adam Gabbatt, quoting Eric Adams, “‘Rat tours’ boom in rodent-infested New York”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "“New York City used to be known for our mean streets, but, going forward, we’re going to be known for our clean streets,” Adams said in June.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A district or set of locales in which there is a high incidence of poverty, crime, disrepair, antisocial behavior, or other adverse conditions."
      ],
      "id": "en-mean_streets-en-noun-jlHflKjS",
      "links": [
        [
          "urban",
          "urban"
        ],
        [
          "district",
          "district"
        ],
        [
          "locale",
          "locale"
        ],
        [
          "poverty",
          "poverty"
        ],
        [
          "crime",
          "crime"
        ],
        [
          "disrepair",
          "disrepair"
        ],
        [
          "antisocial",
          "antisocial"
        ],
        [
          "adverse",
          "adverse"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(of an urban environment) A district or set of locales in which there is a high incidence of poverty, crime, disrepair, antisocial behavior, or other adverse conditions."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of an urban environment"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-normally"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "mean streets"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "mean street",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p",
        "sg": "mean street"
      },
      "expansion": "mean streets pl (normally plural, singular mean street)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English pluralia tantum",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1997 August 21, “Lucky to be alive”, in Lancashire Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2022-04-15",
          "text": "Expectant dog 'Lucky' lived up to her name when a Blackburn woman came to her rescue after being abandoned on the mean streets of Manchester.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 March 4, Buzz Bissinger, “Philadelphia Stories”, in New York Times, retrieved 2022-04-15",
          "text": "In the early 1980s,[…] I was a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer trying to act fearless covering the mean streets of a city with more mean ones than perhaps any in America.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 November 13, Jack Lakey, “The Fixer: City trash bins should be tossed in the garbage, and the old ones brought back”, in The Star, Canada, retrieved 2022-04-15",
          "text": "The city deserves a failing grade for waste bins. […] [W]e’ve noticed an increasing number that are missing plastic side panels, exposing the metal framework and furthering our conclusion that they aren't tough enough for Toronto's mean streets.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 September 4, Adam Gabbatt, quoting Eric Adams, “‘Rat tours’ boom in rodent-infested New York”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "“New York City used to be known for our mean streets, but, going forward, we’re going to be known for our clean streets,” Adams said in June.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A district or set of locales in which there is a high incidence of poverty, crime, disrepair, antisocial behavior, or other adverse conditions."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "urban",
          "urban"
        ],
        [
          "district",
          "district"
        ],
        [
          "locale",
          "locale"
        ],
        [
          "poverty",
          "poverty"
        ],
        [
          "crime",
          "crime"
        ],
        [
          "disrepair",
          "disrepair"
        ],
        [
          "antisocial",
          "antisocial"
        ],
        [
          "adverse",
          "adverse"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(of an urban environment) A district or set of locales in which there is a high incidence of poverty, crime, disrepair, antisocial behavior, or other adverse conditions."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of an urban environment"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-normally"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "mean streets"
}

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.