"not my circus, not my monkeys" meaning in English

See not my circus, not my monkeys in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} not my circus, not my monkeys
  1. (colloquial) It is not my problem; it's none of my business; indicates that one is not responsible for controlling or changing a volatile or delicate situation. Tags: colloquial Categories (topical): Circus Related terms: the organ grinder, not the monkey, different clowns, same circus (english: likewise a circus metaphor emphasizing human folly) Translations (not my problem): nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy (Polish)

Download JSON data for not my circus, not my monkeys meaning in English (2.1kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "not my circus, not my monkeys",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "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 entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Circus",
          "orig": "en:Circus",
          "parents": [
            "Entertainment",
            "Theater",
            "Culture",
            "Art",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2015, J. J. Johnson, Believarexic, Open Road Media",
          "text": "I repeated it like a mantra: Not my circus. Not my monkeys. Except it was my circus. Because, as I lay there, I noticed all my things out of place from the room search. This was my circus. I was stuck with these monkeys.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It is not my problem; it's none of my business; indicates that one is not responsible for controlling or changing a volatile or delicate situation."
      ],
      "id": "en-not_my_circus,_not_my_monkeys-en-phrase-Md0AwEL1",
      "links": [
        [
          "none of my business",
          "none of someone's business"
        ],
        [
          "volatile",
          "volatile"
        ],
        [
          "delicate",
          "delicate"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) It is not my problem; it's none of my business; indicates that one is not responsible for controlling or changing a volatile or delicate situation."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "the organ grinder, not the monkey"
        },
        {
          "english": "likewise a circus metaphor emphasizing human folly",
          "word": "different clowns, same circus"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "not my problem",
          "word": "nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "not my circus, not my monkeys"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "not my circus, not my monkeys",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "the organ grinder, not the monkey"
    },
    {
      "english": "likewise a circus metaphor emphasizing human folly",
      "word": "different clowns, same circus"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Circus"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2015, J. J. Johnson, Believarexic, Open Road Media",
          "text": "I repeated it like a mantra: Not my circus. Not my monkeys. Except it was my circus. Because, as I lay there, I noticed all my things out of place from the room search. This was my circus. I was stuck with these monkeys.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It is not my problem; it's none of my business; indicates that one is not responsible for controlling or changing a volatile or delicate situation."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "none of my business",
          "none of someone's business"
        ],
        [
          "volatile",
          "volatile"
        ],
        [
          "delicate",
          "delicate"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) It is not my problem; it's none of my business; indicates that one is not responsible for controlling or changing a volatile or delicate situation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "not my problem",
      "word": "nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy"
    }
  ],
  "word": "not my circus, not my monkeys"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 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.