"rent-a-gob" meaning in English

See rent-a-gob in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: rent-a-gobs [plural]
Etymology: rent a gob (“mouth”) Etymology templates: {{m|en|rent}} rent, {{m|en|gob||mouth}} gob (“mouth”) Head templates: {{en-noun}} rent-a-gob (plural rent-a-gobs)
  1. (UK, derogatory) Someone who regularly appears in the media, especially to stir controversy or self-aggrandize. Tags: UK, derogatory Synonyms: rent a gob, rentagob
    Sense id: en-rent-a-gob-en-noun-dbmCknuE Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for rent-a-gob meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "rent"
      },
      "expansion": "rent",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "gob",
        "3": "",
        "4": "mouth"
      },
      "expansion": "gob (“mouth”)",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "rent a gob (“mouth”)",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "rent-a-gobs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "rent-a-gob (plural rent-a-gobs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2008, John Stoneman, The Road from Wembley, Troubador Publishing Ltd, page 153",
          "text": "There would either be an obvious candidate for the splash story or you would be desperately scrambling the phones, suggesting interviews with the local rent-a-gobs on the council who you knew would say something controversial, if lacking in substance.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Chris Bryant MP, quoted by Aeron Davis, Political Communication and Social Theory, Routledge →ISBN, page 92",
          "text": "You don't want to be seen too much as a media tart, and as a rent-a-gob, because you just alienate all your colleagues."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Sedge Beswick, 140 Ultimate Twitter LOLs, Lulu.com, page 94",
          "text": "Katie Hopkins found fame on reality TV show The Apprentice. But unlike most former reality stars, who fade into obscurity after their 15 minutes in the spotlight, she's gone on to carve herself a successful career as an infamous rent-a-gob.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who regularly appears in the media, especially to stir controversy or self-aggrandize."
      ],
      "id": "en-rent-a-gob-en-noun-dbmCknuE",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "controversy",
          "controversy"
        ],
        [
          "self-aggrandize",
          "self-aggrandize"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, derogatory) Someone who regularly appears in the media, especially to stir controversy or self-aggrandize."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "rent a gob"
        },
        {
          "word": "rentagob"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "derogatory"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "rent-a-gob"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "rent"
      },
      "expansion": "rent",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "gob",
        "3": "",
        "4": "mouth"
      },
      "expansion": "gob (“mouth”)",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "rent a gob (“mouth”)",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "rent-a-gobs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "rent-a-gob (plural rent-a-gobs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2008, John Stoneman, The Road from Wembley, Troubador Publishing Ltd, page 153",
          "text": "There would either be an obvious candidate for the splash story or you would be desperately scrambling the phones, suggesting interviews with the local rent-a-gobs on the council who you knew would say something controversial, if lacking in substance.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Chris Bryant MP, quoted by Aeron Davis, Political Communication and Social Theory, Routledge →ISBN, page 92",
          "text": "You don't want to be seen too much as a media tart, and as a rent-a-gob, because you just alienate all your colleagues."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Sedge Beswick, 140 Ultimate Twitter LOLs, Lulu.com, page 94",
          "text": "Katie Hopkins found fame on reality TV show The Apprentice. But unlike most former reality stars, who fade into obscurity after their 15 minutes in the spotlight, she's gone on to carve herself a successful career as an infamous rent-a-gob.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who regularly appears in the media, especially to stir controversy or self-aggrandize."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "controversy",
          "controversy"
        ],
        [
          "self-aggrandize",
          "self-aggrandize"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, derogatory) Someone who regularly appears in the media, especially to stir controversy or self-aggrandize."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "derogatory"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "rent a gob"
    },
    {
      "word": "rentagob"
    }
  ],
  "word": "rent-a-gob"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.