"roll off the tongue" meaning in English

See roll off the tongue in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-roll off the tongue.ogg Forms: rolls off the tongue [present, singular, third-person], rolling off the tongue [participle, present], rolled off the tongue [participle, past], rolled off the tongue [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} roll off the tongue (third-person singular simple present rolls off the tongue, present participle rolling off the tongue, simple past and past participle rolled off the tongue)
  1. (idiomatic, of words, speech, etc.) To proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent, appealing, or glib. Tags: idiomatic, usually Categories (topical): Talking Synonyms: roll off one's tongue, roll from the tongue, roll from one's tongue, run from the tongue, run off the tongue, trip from the tongue, trip off the tongue Translations (proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent): 朗朗上口 (lǎnglǎngshàngkǒu) (Chinese Mandarin), soljua (Finnish), срываться с языка (sryvatʹsja s jazyka) (Russian)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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        {
          "ref": "1914, Julian Hawthorne, chapter 5, in The Subterranean Brotherhood:",
          "text": "\"Coddling criminals\"—the alliteration makes it roll pleasantly off the tongue!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1915, Joseph A. Altsheler, chapter 14, in The Rock of Chickamauga:",
          "text": "[H]e repeated under his breath: \"The Rock of Chickamauga! The Rock of Chickamauga!\" It rolled resoundingly off the tongue, and he liked it.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1978 November 20, “Dance: Fungus, Fantasy and Fun”, in Time:",
          "text": "Pilobolus is a word so fine and fat as it rolls off the tongue that, like a kitten or a May morning, it needs no meaning.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1986, Marc Jordan, John Capek, “Rhythm of My Heart”, in Vagabond Heart, performed by Rod Stewart, published 1991:",
          "text": "Oh, the rhythm of my heart / Is beatin' like a drum / With the words \"I love you\" / Rolling off my tongue",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 July 14, Kate Murphy, “Eric Stonestreet”, in New York Times, retrieved 2012-08-14:",
          "text": "I'm a fan of Aaron Sorkin. . . . I just like the way his dialogue rolls off the tongue. I like to hear people say the words he writes.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent, appealing, or glib."
      ],
      "id": "en-roll_off_the_tongue-en-verb-NxCSqDo1",
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          "appealing",
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        "(idiomatic, of words, speech, etc.) To proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent, appealing, or glib."
      ],
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        "of words"
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      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "roll off one's tongue"
        },
        {
          "word": "roll from the tongue"
        },
        {
          "word": "roll from one's tongue"
        },
        {
          "word": "run from the tongue"
        },
        {
          "word": "run off the tongue"
        },
        {
          "word": "trip from the tongue"
        },
        {
          "word": "trip off the tongue"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "usually"
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "lǎnglǎngshàngkǒu",
          "sense": "proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent",
          "word": "朗朗上口"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent",
          "word": "soljua"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "sryvatʹsja s jazyka",
          "sense": "proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent",
          "word": "срываться с языка"
        }
      ]
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    {
      "form": "rolled off the tongue",
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          "ref": "1914, Julian Hawthorne, chapter 5, in The Subterranean Brotherhood:",
          "text": "\"Coddling criminals\"—the alliteration makes it roll pleasantly off the tongue!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1915, Joseph A. Altsheler, chapter 14, in The Rock of Chickamauga:",
          "text": "[H]e repeated under his breath: \"The Rock of Chickamauga! The Rock of Chickamauga!\" It rolled resoundingly off the tongue, and he liked it.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1978 November 20, “Dance: Fungus, Fantasy and Fun”, in Time:",
          "text": "Pilobolus is a word so fine and fat as it rolls off the tongue that, like a kitten or a May morning, it needs no meaning.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1986, Marc Jordan, John Capek, “Rhythm of My Heart”, in Vagabond Heart, performed by Rod Stewart, published 1991:",
          "text": "Oh, the rhythm of my heart / Is beatin' like a drum / With the words \"I love you\" / Rolling off my tongue",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 July 14, Kate Murphy, “Eric Stonestreet”, in New York Times, retrieved 2012-08-14:",
          "text": "I'm a fan of Aaron Sorkin. . . . I just like the way his dialogue rolls off the tongue. I like to hear people say the words he writes.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "To proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent, appealing, or glib."
      ],
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        "(idiomatic, of words, speech, etc.) To proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent, appealing, or glib."
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    {
      "word": "roll off one's tongue"
    },
    {
      "word": "roll from the tongue"
    },
    {
      "word": "roll from one's tongue"
    },
    {
      "word": "run from the tongue"
    },
    {
      "word": "run off the tongue"
    },
    {
      "word": "trip from the tongue"
    },
    {
      "word": "trip off the tongue"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "lǎnglǎngshàngkǒu",
      "sense": "proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent",
      "word": "朗朗上口"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent",
      "word": "soljua"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "sryvatʹsja s jazyka",
      "sense": "proceed into oral expression in a manner which is fluent",
      "word": "срываться с языка"
    }
  ],
  "word": "roll off the tongue"
}

Download raw JSONL data for roll off the tongue meaning in English (3.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (c15a5ce and 5c11237). 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.