"mind like a sieve" meaning in English

See mind like a sieve in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-have a mind like a sieve.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: Since a sieve has many holes, the thoughts in such a mind might be imagined to fall out. Head templates: {{head|en|noun}} mind like a sieve
  1. (simile) very poor memory Synonyms: memory like a sieve, brain like a sieve, head like a sieve Related terms: leak like a sieve Translations (poor memory): pää vuotaa kuin seula (Finnish), mémoire de poisson rouge (French), ein Hirn wie ein Sieb haben (German), ein Gedächtnis wie ein Sieb haben (German), avere la memoria corta (Italian), caura galva (Latvian), па́мять как решето́ (pámjatʹ kak rešetó) (Russian), голова́ дыря́вая (golová dyrjávaja) (Russian), may buslong butas (Tagalog)
    Sense id: en-mind_like_a_sieve-en-noun-ZyEY2nCz Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English similes

Download JSON data for mind like a sieve meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Since a sieve has many holes, the thoughts in such a mind might be imagined to fall out.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun"
      },
      "expansion": "mind like a sieve",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "mind like a steel trap"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English similes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Oh, that's right. You said that yesterday, didn't you? I have a mind like a sieve.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "very poor memory"
      ],
      "id": "en-mind_like_a_sieve-en-noun-ZyEY2nCz",
      "links": [
        [
          "memory",
          "memory"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(simile) very poor memory"
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "leak like a sieve"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "memory like a sieve"
        },
        {
          "word": "brain like a sieve"
        },
        {
          "word": "head like a sieve"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "pää vuotaa kuin seula"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "mémoire de poisson rouge"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "ein Hirn wie ein Sieb haben"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "ein Gedächtnis wie ein Sieb haben"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "avere la memoria corta"
        },
        {
          "code": "lv",
          "lang": "Latvian",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "caura galva"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "pámjatʹ kak rešetó",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "па́мять как решето́"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "golová dyrjávaja",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "голова́ дыря́вая"
        },
        {
          "code": "tl",
          "lang": "Tagalog",
          "sense": "poor memory",
          "word": "may buslong butas"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-have a mind like a sieve.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/45/En-au-have_a_mind_like_a_sieve.ogg/En-au-have_a_mind_like_a_sieve.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/En-au-have_a_mind_like_a_sieve.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "mind like a sieve"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Since a sieve has many holes, the thoughts in such a mind might be imagined to fall out.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun"
      },
      "expansion": "mind like a sieve",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "leak like a sieve"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "mind like a steel trap"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English similes",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Oh, that's right. You said that yesterday, didn't you? I have a mind like a sieve.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "very poor memory"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "memory",
          "memory"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(simile) very poor memory"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "memory like a sieve"
        },
        {
          "word": "brain like a sieve"
        },
        {
          "word": "head like a sieve"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-have a mind like a sieve.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/45/En-au-have_a_mind_like_a_sieve.ogg/En-au-have_a_mind_like_a_sieve.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/En-au-have_a_mind_like_a_sieve.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "pää vuotaa kuin seula"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "mémoire de poisson rouge"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "ein Hirn wie ein Sieb haben"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "ein Gedächtnis wie ein Sieb haben"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "avere la memoria corta"
    },
    {
      "code": "lv",
      "lang": "Latvian",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "caura galva"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "pámjatʹ kak rešetó",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "па́мять как решето́"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "golová dyrjávaja",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "голова́ дыря́вая"
    },
    {
      "code": "tl",
      "lang": "Tagalog",
      "sense": "poor memory",
      "word": "may buslong butas"
    }
  ],
  "word": "mind like a sieve"
}

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