"red rag to a bull" meaning in English

See red rag to a bull in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: red rags to a bull [plural], red rags to bulls [plural]
Etymology: Possibly refers to the red cape used by matadors in bullfighting. Head templates: {{en-noun|red rags to a bull|red rags to bulls}} red rag to a bull (plural red rags to a bull or red rags to bulls)
  1. Something that will enrage another particular person. Synonyms: red rag

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for red rag to a bull meaning in English (1.8kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Possibly refers to the red cape used by matadors in bullfighting.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "red rags to a bull",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "red rags to bulls",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "red rags to a bull",
        "2": "red rags to bulls"
      },
      "expansion": "red rag to a bull (plural red rags to a bull or red rags to bulls)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "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 language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English similes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Simply mentioning the word \"nationalism\" to him is like a red rag to a bull.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 March 28, Graeme McGarry, “Scott McTominay earns place in history as Scotland stun Spain”, in The Herald",
          "text": "The rolling around and screams of anguish from Porro though were like a red rag to a bull for the Scotland support, who howled and harangued his every touch before he was withdrawn at the interval, presumably for his own safety.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that will enrage another particular person."
      ],
      "id": "en-red_rag_to_a_bull-en-noun-qtTNW535",
      "links": [
        [
          "enrage",
          "enrage"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "red rag"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "red rag to a bull"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Possibly refers to the red cape used by matadors in bullfighting.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "red rags to a bull",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "red rags to bulls",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "red rags to a bull",
        "2": "red rags to bulls"
      },
      "expansion": "red rag to a bull (plural red rags to a bull or red rags to bulls)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English similes",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Simply mentioning the word \"nationalism\" to him is like a red rag to a bull.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 March 28, Graeme McGarry, “Scott McTominay earns place in history as Scotland stun Spain”, in The Herald",
          "text": "The rolling around and screams of anguish from Porro though were like a red rag to a bull for the Scotland support, who howled and harangued his every touch before he was withdrawn at the interval, presumably for his own safety.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that will enrage another particular person."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "enrage",
          "enrage"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "red rag"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "red rag to a bull"
}

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.