"nigger in the woodpile" meaning in English

See nigger in the woodpile in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: niggers in the woodpile [plural], niggers in woodpiles [plural]
Etymology: First attested in the 1840s. Head templates: {{en-noun|niggers in the woodpile|niggers in woodpiles}} nigger in the woodpile (plural niggers in the woodpile or niggers in woodpiles)
  1. (offensive, ethnic slur, dated) A hidden motive, influence or factor; a concealed (potential) snag; something suspicious. Wikipedia link: nigger in the woodpile Tags: dated, ethnic, offensive, slur Synonyms: nigger in the fence, Ethiopian in the woodpile, monkey in the woodpile, nigger in the wood-pile, nigger in the wood pile Translations (Translations): koira haudattuna (Finnish), jotain mätää (Finnish), anguille sous roche [feminine] (French), couille [feminine, vulgar] (French), Kuckucksei [neuter] (German), gato encerrado (Spanish)

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "First attested in the 1840s.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "niggers in the woodpile",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "niggers in woodpiles",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "niggers in the woodpile",
        "2": "niggers in woodpiles"
      },
      "expansion": "nigger in the woodpile (plural niggers in the woodpile or niggers in woodpiles)",
      "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 ethnic slurs",
          "parents": [
            "Ethnic slurs",
            "Offensive terms",
            "Terms by usage"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with French translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with German translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1858 December 20, “The Huntington and Whitley Case”, in The Legislative Sentinel, volume I, number 14, page 137:",
          "text": "Democra s^([sic]) placed no nigger in the woodpile—the imputation came with a bad grace from the gentleman from Kosciusko.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1964 September, “News: BR role in London traffic patterns”, in Modern Railways, page 200:",
          "text": "(Bus traffic in the London area fell 33 per cent, although the total for public transport increased by 8 per cent; but private car journeys, the nigger in the public transport woodpile, went up 78 per cent in the decade).",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A hidden motive, influence or factor; a concealed (potential) snag; something suspicious."
      ],
      "id": "en-nigger_in_the_woodpile-en-noun-pn2aywUg",
      "links": [
        [
          "ethnic",
          "ethnic"
        ],
        [
          "slur",
          "slur"
        ],
        [
          "hidden",
          "hidden"
        ],
        [
          "motive",
          "motive"
        ],
        [
          "influence",
          "influence"
        ],
        [
          "factor",
          "factor"
        ],
        [
          "concealed",
          "concealed"
        ],
        [
          "snag",
          "snag"
        ],
        [
          "suspicious",
          "suspicious"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(offensive, ethnic slur, dated) A hidden motive, influence or factor; a concealed (potential) snag; something suspicious."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "nigger in the fence"
        },
        {
          "word": "Ethiopian in the woodpile"
        },
        {
          "word": "monkey in the woodpile"
        },
        {
          "word": "nigger in the wood-pile"
        },
        {
          "word": "nigger in the wood pile"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "ethnic",
        "offensive",
        "slur"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "koira haudattuna"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "jotain mätää"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "anguille sous roche"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "feminine",
            "vulgar"
          ],
          "word": "couille"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "Kuckucksei"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "gato encerrado"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "nigger in the woodpile"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "nigger in the woodpile"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "First attested in the 1840s.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "niggers in the woodpile",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "niggers in woodpiles",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "niggers in the woodpile",
        "2": "niggers in woodpiles"
      },
      "expansion": "nigger in the woodpile (plural niggers in the woodpile or niggers in woodpiles)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English dated terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English ethnic slurs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English offensive terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "Terms with French translations",
        "Terms with German translations",
        "Terms with Spanish translations",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1858 December 20, “The Huntington and Whitley Case”, in The Legislative Sentinel, volume I, number 14, page 137:",
          "text": "Democra s^([sic]) placed no nigger in the woodpile—the imputation came with a bad grace from the gentleman from Kosciusko.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1964 September, “News: BR role in London traffic patterns”, in Modern Railways, page 200:",
          "text": "(Bus traffic in the London area fell 33 per cent, although the total for public transport increased by 8 per cent; but private car journeys, the nigger in the public transport woodpile, went up 78 per cent in the decade).",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A hidden motive, influence or factor; a concealed (potential) snag; something suspicious."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "ethnic",
          "ethnic"
        ],
        [
          "slur",
          "slur"
        ],
        [
          "hidden",
          "hidden"
        ],
        [
          "motive",
          "motive"
        ],
        [
          "influence",
          "influence"
        ],
        [
          "factor",
          "factor"
        ],
        [
          "concealed",
          "concealed"
        ],
        [
          "snag",
          "snag"
        ],
        [
          "suspicious",
          "suspicious"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(offensive, ethnic slur, dated) A hidden motive, influence or factor; a concealed (potential) snag; something suspicious."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "nigger in the fence"
        },
        {
          "word": "Ethiopian in the woodpile"
        },
        {
          "word": "monkey in the woodpile"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "ethnic",
        "offensive",
        "slur"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "nigger in the woodpile"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "nigger in the wood-pile"
    },
    {
      "word": "nigger in the wood pile"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "koira haudattuna"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "jotain mätää"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "anguille sous roche"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "vulgar"
      ],
      "word": "couille"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Kuckucksei"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "gato encerrado"
    }
  ],
  "word": "nigger in the woodpile"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.