"no joy" meaning in English

See no joy in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Head templates: {{head|en|noun}} no joy
  1. (military) Unable to establish visual or radio contact with a target aircraft. Categories (topical): Military
    Sense id: en-no_joy-en-noun-q8c0Q2HR Topics: government, military, politics, war
  2. (idiomatic) A negative outcome; no success; a failure. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: no-go, no dice
    Sense id: en-no_joy-en-noun-2gEr0fCl Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 14 86 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 8 92 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 7 93
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun"
      },
      "expansion": "no joy",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Military",
          "orig": "en:Military",
          "parents": [
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Unable to establish visual or radio contact with a target aircraft."
      ],
      "id": "en-no_joy-en-noun-q8c0Q2HR",
      "links": [
        [
          "military",
          "military"
        ],
        [
          "establish",
          "establish"
        ],
        [
          "visual",
          "visual"
        ],
        [
          "radio",
          "radio"
        ],
        [
          "contact",
          "contact"
        ],
        [
          "target",
          "target"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(military) Unable to establish visual or radio contact with a target aircraft."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "military",
        "politics",
        "war"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "14 86",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "8 92",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "7 93",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I've been waiting 20 minutes for a bus, and still no joy.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Stuart Woods, Heat:",
          "text": "We X-rayed the briefcase last night, but no joy. The P160 technician reckoned it was lined in lead foil.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A negative outcome; no success; a failure."
      ],
      "id": "en-no_joy-en-noun-2gEr0fCl",
      "links": [
        [
          "negative",
          "negative"
        ],
        [
          "outcome",
          "outcome"
        ],
        [
          "success",
          "success"
        ],
        [
          "failure",
          "failure"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A negative outcome; no success; a failure."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "31 69",
          "word": "no-go"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "31 69",
          "word": "no dice"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "no joy"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun"
      },
      "expansion": "no joy",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "no-go"
    },
    {
      "word": "no dice"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "en:Military"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Unable to establish visual or radio contact with a target aircraft."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "military",
          "military"
        ],
        [
          "establish",
          "establish"
        ],
        [
          "visual",
          "visual"
        ],
        [
          "radio",
          "radio"
        ],
        [
          "contact",
          "contact"
        ],
        [
          "target",
          "target"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(military) Unable to establish visual or radio contact with a target aircraft."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
        "military",
        "politics",
        "war"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I've been waiting 20 minutes for a bus, and still no joy.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Stuart Woods, Heat:",
          "text": "We X-rayed the briefcase last night, but no joy. The P160 technician reckoned it was lined in lead foil.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A negative outcome; no success; a failure."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "negative",
          "negative"
        ],
        [
          "outcome",
          "outcome"
        ],
        [
          "success",
          "success"
        ],
        [
          "failure",
          "failure"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A negative outcome; no success; a failure."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "no joy"
}

Download raw JSONL data for no joy meaning in English (1.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-02 using wiktextract (f2d86ce and 633533e). 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.