"roach motel" meaning in English

See roach motel in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: roach motels [plural]
Etymology: The meaning "low-priced motel" is because such a place might be expected to be infested with roaches. The meaning "something easy to enter, difficult to leave" is from American roach-bait brand Roach Motel, advertised with the slogan "Roaches check in, but they don't check out!" Head templates: {{en-noun}} roach motel (plural roach motels)
  1. (derogatory) A low-priced motel in a state of disrepair. Tags: derogatory
    Sense id: en-roach_motel-en-noun-UICX-rwd Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 63 37 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 61 39 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 86 14
  2. Something that is easy to enter, but is difficult or costly to leave.
    Sense id: en-roach_motel-en-noun-gUmr4HS0

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "The meaning \"low-priced motel\" is because such a place might be expected to be infested with roaches. The meaning \"something easy to enter, difficult to leave\" is from American roach-bait brand Roach Motel, advertised with the slogan \"Roaches check in, but they don't check out!\"",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "roach motels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "roach motel (plural roach motels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "63 37",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "61 39",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "86 14",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A low-priced motel in a state of disrepair."
      ],
      "id": "en-roach_motel-en-noun-UICX-rwd",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "motel",
          "motel"
        ],
        [
          "disrepair",
          "disrepair"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory) A low-priced motel in a state of disrepair."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010, William H. Inmon, Bonnie O'Neil, Lowell Fryman, Business Metadata: Capturing Enterprise Knowledge, page 141:",
          "text": "8.3.1 The Importance of Easy Access: Avoid the “Roach Motel!” In Chapter 6, we discussed what a “roach motel” was. You can get data into a “roach motel”, but you can't easily get it out.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Cory Doctorow, Context, page 102:",
          "text": "Don't hope for a better shake from Apple, either. Apple's longstanding love-affair with proprietary formats and lock-ins will very likely make the iPad every inch the roach motel that the Kindle is",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Scot R. Wheeler, Architecting Experience: A Marketing Science and Digital Analytics Handbook, page 186:",
          "text": "The “Roach Motel” is a broad category of Dark Pattern that subsumes most types listed on this site. Put simply, a Roach Motel makes it very easy for a user to get into a certain situation, but then makes it hard for them to get out of it when they realize it is undesirable.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 June 8, Zoe Kleinman, “Is the web full of nasty tricks?”, in BBC News:",
          "text": "Ever signed up for something online and then found it very difficult to unsubscribe? Then you've been to a roach motel - one of many web design tricks employed by some firms to drum up more trade.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022, Robert A. Schwartz, John Aidan Byrne, Eileen Stempel, 40 Years of Experience with the National Market System (NMS), page 51:",
          "text": "CAVOLI: If you do not know, 390 was a specific New York Stock Exchange rule that disallowed member organizations from trading off exchange, as late as 2001. MAHONEY: In the beginning, the NYSE was truly the roach motel.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 December 9, Itu Rathore, “Is Amazon employing a deceptive strategy to keep its Prime members subscribed?”, in dazeinfo briefs:",
          "text": "The research was conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, and the findings point to one conclusion: “Amazon Prime’s subscription model is a “roach motel,” where getting in is almost effortless, but escape is an ordeal.”",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that is easy to enter, but is difficult or costly to leave."
      ],
      "id": "en-roach_motel-en-noun-gUmr4HS0"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Roach Motel",
    "roach motel"
  ],
  "word": "roach motel"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "The meaning \"low-priced motel\" is because such a place might be expected to be infested with roaches. The meaning \"something easy to enter, difficult to leave\" is from American roach-bait brand Roach Motel, advertised with the slogan \"Roaches check in, but they don't check out!\"",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "roach motels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "roach motel (plural roach motels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English derogatory terms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A low-priced motel in a state of disrepair."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "motel",
          "motel"
        ],
        [
          "disrepair",
          "disrepair"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory) A low-priced motel in a state of disrepair."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010, William H. Inmon, Bonnie O'Neil, Lowell Fryman, Business Metadata: Capturing Enterprise Knowledge, page 141:",
          "text": "8.3.1 The Importance of Easy Access: Avoid the “Roach Motel!” In Chapter 6, we discussed what a “roach motel” was. You can get data into a “roach motel”, but you can't easily get it out.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Cory Doctorow, Context, page 102:",
          "text": "Don't hope for a better shake from Apple, either. Apple's longstanding love-affair with proprietary formats and lock-ins will very likely make the iPad every inch the roach motel that the Kindle is",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Scot R. Wheeler, Architecting Experience: A Marketing Science and Digital Analytics Handbook, page 186:",
          "text": "The “Roach Motel” is a broad category of Dark Pattern that subsumes most types listed on this site. Put simply, a Roach Motel makes it very easy for a user to get into a certain situation, but then makes it hard for them to get out of it when they realize it is undesirable.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 June 8, Zoe Kleinman, “Is the web full of nasty tricks?”, in BBC News:",
          "text": "Ever signed up for something online and then found it very difficult to unsubscribe? Then you've been to a roach motel - one of many web design tricks employed by some firms to drum up more trade.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022, Robert A. Schwartz, John Aidan Byrne, Eileen Stempel, 40 Years of Experience with the National Market System (NMS), page 51:",
          "text": "CAVOLI: If you do not know, 390 was a specific New York Stock Exchange rule that disallowed member organizations from trading off exchange, as late as 2001. MAHONEY: In the beginning, the NYSE was truly the roach motel.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 December 9, Itu Rathore, “Is Amazon employing a deceptive strategy to keep its Prime members subscribed?”, in dazeinfo briefs:",
          "text": "The research was conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, and the findings point to one conclusion: “Amazon Prime’s subscription model is a “roach motel,” where getting in is almost effortless, but escape is an ordeal.”",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that is easy to enter, but is difficult or costly to leave."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Roach Motel",
    "roach motel"
  ],
  "word": "roach motel"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.

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