See on the down-low in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
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"form": "on the down low",
"tags": [
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},
{
"form": "on the DL",
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},
{
"form": "on the low",
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},
{
"form": "on the downlow",
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"related": [
{
"_dis1": "37 30 33",
"word": "keep it in the family"
}
],
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{
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{
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"type": "example"
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],
"glosses": [
"In secret or nearly so, on a need-to-know basis."
],
"id": "en-on_the_down-low-en-prep_phrase-en:in_secret_or_nearly_so__on_a_need_to_know_basis",
"links": [
[
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"secret"
],
[
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"need-to-know"
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang, euphemistic) In secret or nearly so, on a need-to-know basis."
],
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"en:in secret or nearly so, on a need-to-know basis"
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"Secretly sleeping with someone other than one's partner."
],
"id": "en-on_the_down-low-en-prep_phrase-en:cheating_on_one_s_partner",
"raw_glosses": [
"(US, idiomatic, slang, euphemistic) Secretly sleeping with someone other than one's partner."
],
"senseid": [
"en:cheating on one_s partner"
],
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"euphemistic",
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"_dis": "36 37 27",
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],
"glosses": [
"Of a man, publicly identifying as heterosexual but secretly having sex with men."
],
"id": "en-on_the_down-low-en-prep_phrase-en:having_same_sex_relations_but_not_identifying_as_gay",
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"(African-American Vernacular, LGBTQ) Of a man, publicly identifying as heterosexual but secretly having sex with men."
],
"senseid": [
"en:having same-sex relations but not identifying as gay"
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}
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{
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{
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"tags": [
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]
},
{
"form": "on the DL",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
},
{
"form": "on the low",
"tags": [
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]
},
{
"form": "on the downlow",
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],
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"In secret or nearly so, on a need-to-know basis."
],
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],
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"(US, idiomatic, slang, euphemistic) In secret or nearly so, on a need-to-know basis."
],
"senseid": [
"en:in secret or nearly so, on a need-to-know basis"
],
"tags": [
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},
{
"categories": [
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"Secretly sleeping with someone other than one's partner."
],
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"(US, idiomatic, slang, euphemistic) Secretly sleeping with someone other than one's partner."
],
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"en:cheating on one_s partner"
],
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"US",
"euphemistic",
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"slang"
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},
{
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"Of a man, publicly identifying as heterosexual but secretly having sex with men."
],
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"LGBTQ"
],
[
"heterosexual",
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]
],
"qualifier": "African-American Vernacular",
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"(African-American Vernacular, LGBTQ) Of a man, publicly identifying as heterosexual but secretly having sex with men."
],
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"en:having same-sex relations but not identifying as gay"
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}
Download raw JSONL data for on the down-low meaning in English (2.4kB)
{
"called_from": "form_descriptions/1831",
"msg": "unrecognized sense qualifier: African-American Vernacular, LGBTQ",
"path": [
"on the down-low"
],
"section": "English",
"subsection": "prepositional phrase",
"title": "on the down-low",
"trace": ""
}
{
"called_from": "form_descriptions/1831",
"msg": "unrecognized sense qualifier: African-American Vernacular, LGBTQ",
"path": [
"on the down-low"
],
"section": "English",
"subsection": "prepositional phrase",
"title": "on the down-low",
"trace": ""
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (51d164f and fb63907). 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.