See play second fiddle in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From the second violin in an orchestra.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "plays second fiddle",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "playing second fiddle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "played second fiddle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "played second fiddle",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
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"args": {
"1": "*",
"head": "play second fiddle"
},
"expansion": "play second fiddle (third-person singular simple present plays second fiddle, present participle playing second fiddle, simple past and past participle played second fiddle)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
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"Entry maintenance"
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"source": "w"
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{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
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},
{
"kind": "other",
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},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Icelandic translations",
"parents": [],
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},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Norwegian Bokmål translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Polish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Slovak translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Slovene translations",
"parents": [],
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}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1913, Ethel Carnie, Miss Nobody, page 68:",
"text": "She had been mistress of the farm so long that it would be hard for her to play second fiddle, but give her time and she'd be as good as new butter and as nice as ninepence, he said.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2011 December 15, Felicity Cloake, “How to cook the perfect nut roast”, in Guardian:",
"text": "Christmas queen Mary Berry's aubergine five-nut roast, from her Christmas Collection, is, as the name suggests, rather more focused on the nut side of things. Breadcrumbs play second fiddle to a medley of almonds, Brazils, chestnuts, pine nuts and pistachios which, although tangy with lemon juice and garlic, is outrageously dense. A single slice of this could leave you supine in front of the Queen's speech without even the wherewithal to reach for the remote control.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To play a subsidiary or subordinate role to someone or something else."
],
"id": "en-play_second_fiddle-en-verb-8aqHJFjm",
"links": [
[
"subsidiary",
"subsidiary"
],
[
"subordinate",
"subordinate"
],
[
"role",
"role"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, intransitive) To play a subsidiary or subordinate role to someone or something else."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "take a back seat"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "jäädä toiseksi"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "die zweite Geige spielen"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "leika aukahlutverk"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "vera lægra settur"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "mega sín minna"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "vinna skítverkin"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "spille annenfiolin"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "grać drugie skrzypce"
},
{
"code": "sk",
"lang": "Slovak",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "hrať druhé husle"
},
{
"code": "sl",
"lang": "Slovene",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "igrati drugo violino"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-play second fiddle.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/bc/En-au-play_second_fiddle.ogg/En-au-play_second_fiddle.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/En-au-play_second_fiddle.ogg"
}
],
"word": "play second fiddle"
}
{
"etymology_text": "From the second violin in an orchestra.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "plays second fiddle",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "playing second fiddle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "played second fiddle",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "played second fiddle",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*",
"head": "play second fiddle"
},
"expansion": "play second fiddle (third-person singular simple present plays second fiddle, present participle playing second fiddle, simple past and past participle played second fiddle)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "take a back seat"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English intransitive verbs",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
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"English verbs",
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"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned",
"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with German translations",
"Terms with Icelandic translations",
"Terms with Norwegian Bokmål translations",
"Terms with Polish translations",
"Terms with Slovak translations",
"Terms with Slovene translations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1913, Ethel Carnie, Miss Nobody, page 68:",
"text": "She had been mistress of the farm so long that it would be hard for her to play second fiddle, but give her time and she'd be as good as new butter and as nice as ninepence, he said.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2011 December 15, Felicity Cloake, “How to cook the perfect nut roast”, in Guardian:",
"text": "Christmas queen Mary Berry's aubergine five-nut roast, from her Christmas Collection, is, as the name suggests, rather more focused on the nut side of things. Breadcrumbs play second fiddle to a medley of almonds, Brazils, chestnuts, pine nuts and pistachios which, although tangy with lemon juice and garlic, is outrageously dense. A single slice of this could leave you supine in front of the Queen's speech without even the wherewithal to reach for the remote control.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To play a subsidiary or subordinate role to someone or something else."
],
"links": [
[
"subsidiary",
"subsidiary"
],
[
"subordinate",
"subordinate"
],
[
"role",
"role"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, intransitive) To play a subsidiary or subordinate role to someone or something else."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-play second fiddle.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/bc/En-au-play_second_fiddle.ogg/En-au-play_second_fiddle.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/En-au-play_second_fiddle.ogg"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "jäädä toiseksi"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "die zweite Geige spielen"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "leika aukahlutverk"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "vera lægra settur"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "mega sín minna"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "vinna skítverkin"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "spille annenfiolin"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "grać drugie skrzypce"
},
{
"code": "sk",
"lang": "Slovak",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "hrať druhé husle"
},
{
"code": "sl",
"lang": "Slovene",
"sense": "idiomatic",
"word": "igrati drugo violino"
}
],
"word": "play second fiddle"
}
Download raw JSONL data for play second fiddle meaning in English (3.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (bb46d54 and 0c3c9f6). 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.