"no better than one ought to be" meaning in English

See no better than one ought to be in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} no better than one ought to be (not comparable)
  1. (dated, euphemistic) Sexually promiscuous. Tags: dated, euphemistic, not-comparable Synonyms: promiscuous
    Sense id: en-no_better_than_one_ought_to_be-en-adj-IAETIFA5 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English euphemisms

Download JSON data for no better than one ought to be meaning in English (1.7kB)

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      "expansion": "no better than one ought to be (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1848, The American Pulpit, volume 3, page 120",
          "text": "There were no whisperings, even from his opponents, that he was no better than he ought to be. Because, there was nothing wrong on which to hang a charge. As an eloquent orator, he carried with him the firm support of a good name.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "1867, Caroline Fairfield Corbin, A Woman's Secret, page 162",
          "text": "After dinner she went directly to Melissa.\n“Mellie,” she said, “do you know, I've good reason for thinking this woman you've got is no better than she ought to be. Think of that, and you sick, and Abraham exposed to temptation.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1891, Charles Garvice, Better Than Life, page 290",
          "text": "Everybody agreed that though nothing was known concerning Mrs. Markwood, she was no better than she ought to be.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Sexually promiscuous."
      ],
      "id": "en-no_better_than_one_ought_to_be-en-adj-IAETIFA5",
      "links": [
        [
          "Sexually",
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        [
          "promiscuous",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dated, euphemistic) Sexually promiscuous."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "promiscuous"
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      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "euphemistic",
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  "word": "no better than one ought to be"
}
{
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          "ref": "1848, The American Pulpit, volume 3, page 120",
          "text": "There were no whisperings, even from his opponents, that he was no better than he ought to be. Because, there was nothing wrong on which to hang a charge. As an eloquent orator, he carried with him the firm support of a good name.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "1867, Caroline Fairfield Corbin, A Woman's Secret, page 162",
          "text": "After dinner she went directly to Melissa.\n“Mellie,” she said, “do you know, I've good reason for thinking this woman you've got is no better than she ought to be. Think of that, and you sick, and Abraham exposed to temptation.”",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "Sexually promiscuous."
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  ],
  "word": "no better than one ought to be"
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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 2024-04-30 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.