"potatoes and point" meaning in English

See potatoes and point in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: * Relates to pointing with the finger (see 1880 citation), but sources differ: perhaps pointing to the empty space where the meat/fish would be. * Perhaps from point as the punctuation mark (period/full stop) marking termination. Etymology templates: {{m|en|point}} point Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} potatoes and point (uncountable)
  1. (humorous, Ireland, obsolete) A simple meal of potatoes only, or very little else. Tags: Ireland, humorous, obsolete, uncountable

Download JSON data for potatoes and point meaning in English (2.6kB)

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  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "point"
      },
      "expansion": "point",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "* Relates to pointing with the finger (see 1880 citation), but sources differ: perhaps pointing to the empty space where the meat/fish would be.\n* Perhaps from point as the punctuation mark (period/full stop) marking termination.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
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      "expansion": "potatoes and point (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English coordinated pairs",
          "parents": [
            "Coordinated pairs",
            "Terms by etymology"
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        },
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Irish English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1880, Notes and Queries, page 443",
          "text": "I well remember partaking, when a child four or five years old, with other little ones, of the dish referred to, viz., \"potatoes-and-point,\"—and no meat at all entered into its composition—which consisted of boiled potatoes mashed up with a little milk. […] Every now and then, on the word of command—\"Point!\"—being given by the nurse, we all pointed our spoons to the ceiling and then fell to again. […] All parents also know how easily young children are enticed into anything like playing at a game, and this \"potatoes-and-point\" in our eyes almost amounted to one.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1883, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, volume 52, page 95",
          "text": "Many readers will be reminded of the Irish dish \"Potatoes and point,\" consisting of a large supply of potatoes and of a very limited supply of meat, bacon, or even fish.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A simple meal of potatoes only, or very little else."
      ],
      "id": "en-potatoes_and_point-en-noun--a~trOra",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "meal",
          "meal"
        ],
        [
          "potato",
          "potato"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(humorous, Ireland, obsolete) A simple meal of potatoes only, or very little else."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "humorous",
        "obsolete",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "potatoes and point"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "point"
      },
      "expansion": "point",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "* Relates to pointing with the finger (see 1880 citation), but sources differ: perhaps pointing to the empty space where the meat/fish would be.\n* Perhaps from point as the punctuation mark (period/full stop) marking termination.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "potatoes and point (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        "English humorous terms",
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        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Irish English",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1880, Notes and Queries, page 443",
          "text": "I well remember partaking, when a child four or five years old, with other little ones, of the dish referred to, viz., \"potatoes-and-point,\"—and no meat at all entered into its composition—which consisted of boiled potatoes mashed up with a little milk. […] Every now and then, on the word of command—\"Point!\"—being given by the nurse, we all pointed our spoons to the ceiling and then fell to again. […] All parents also know how easily young children are enticed into anything like playing at a game, and this \"potatoes-and-point\" in our eyes almost amounted to one.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1883, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, volume 52, page 95",
          "text": "Many readers will be reminded of the Irish dish \"Potatoes and point,\" consisting of a large supply of potatoes and of a very limited supply of meat, bacon, or even fish.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A simple meal of potatoes only, or very little else."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "meal",
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(humorous, Ireland, obsolete) A simple meal of potatoes only, or very little else."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "humorous",
        "obsolete",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "potatoes and point"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 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.