rocket surgery in English

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "A deliberate mixed metaphor combining rocket science and brain surgery.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "rocket surgery (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English litotes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English negative polarity items",
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        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              9,
              23
            ]
          ],
          "text": "It's not rocket surgery. Just screw in the bulb and flip the switch.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Anything overly complex, detailed, or confusing."
      ],
      "id": "en-rocket_surgery-en-noun-OFQlEx5j",
      "links": [
        [
          "complex",
          "complex"
        ],
        [
          "detailed",
          "detailed"
        ],
        [
          "confusing",
          "confusing"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, humorous, chiefly in the negative) Anything overly complex, detailed, or confusing."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "in the negative"
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "rocket surgeon"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "rocket science"
        },
        {
          "word": "brain surgery"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous",
        "idiomatic",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "rocket surgery"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "A deliberate mixed metaphor combining rocket science and brain surgery.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "rocket surgery (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "rocket surgeon"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English litotes",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English negative polarity items",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              9,
              23
            ]
          ],
          "text": "It's not rocket surgery. Just screw in the bulb and flip the switch.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Anything overly complex, detailed, or confusing."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "complex",
          "complex"
        ],
        [
          "detailed",
          "detailed"
        ],
        [
          "confusing",
          "confusing"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, humorous, chiefly in the negative) Anything overly complex, detailed, or confusing."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "in the negative"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "rocket science"
        },
        {
          "word": "brain surgery"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous",
        "idiomatic",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "rocket surgery"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-02-11 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-02-01 using wiktextract (f492ef9 and 59dc20b). 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.

"rocket surgery" meaning in English

Noun