"see a man about a horse" meaning in English

See see a man about a horse in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-see a man about a horse.ogg [Australia] Forms: sees a man about a horse [present, singular, third-person], seeing a man about a horse [participle, present], saw a man about a horse [past], seen a man about a horse [participle, past]
Etymology: A variant of see a man about a dog, from the implied context of seeing someone about a bet on a horse race. Etymology templates: {{m|en|see a man about a dog}} see a man about a dog Head templates: {{en-verb|see<,,saw,seen> a man about a horse}} see a man about a horse (third-person singular simple present sees a man about a horse, present participle seeing a man about a horse, simple past saw a man about a horse, past participle seen a man about a horse)
  1. (idiomatic, euphemistic) Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly to use a toilet. Tags: euphemistic, idiomatic Categories (topical): Bodily functions Synonyms: use the toilet, urinate, and Thesaurus:defecate Synonyms (all senses): a man, a man about a dog Synonyms (use the toilet): a man about the plumbing

Download JSON data for see a man about a horse meaning in English (3.1kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "see a man about a dog"
      },
      "expansion": "see a man about a dog",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "A variant of see a man about a dog, from the implied context of seeing someone about a bet on a horse race.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sees a man about a horse",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "seeing a man about a horse",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saw a man about a horse",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "seen a man about a horse",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "see<,,saw,seen> a man about a horse"
      },
      "expansion": "see a man about a horse (third-person singular simple present sees a man about a horse, present participle seeing a man about a horse, simple past saw a man about a horse, past participle seen a man about a horse)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "name": "English euphemisms",
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          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [
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        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Bodily functions",
          "orig": "en:Bodily functions",
          "parents": [
            "Body",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail. I've just got to visit the ladies' room to see a man about a horse.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly to use a toilet."
      ],
      "id": "en-see_a_man_about_a_horse-en-verb-NMgrOZtg",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, euphemistic) Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly to use a toilet."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "sense": "all senses",
          "word": "a man"
        },
        {
          "sense": "all senses",
          "word": "a man about a dog"
        },
        {
          "sense": "use the toilet",
          "word": "a man about the plumbing"
        },
        {
          "word": "use the toilet"
        },
        {
          "word": "urinate"
        },
        {
          "word": "and Thesaurus:defecate"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "euphemistic",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/En-au-see_a_man_about_a_horse.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "see a man about a horse"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
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        "2": "see a man about a dog"
      },
      "expansion": "see a man about a dog",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "A variant of see a man about a dog, from the implied context of seeing someone about a bet on a horse race.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sees a man about a horse",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "seeing a man about a horse",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saw a man about a horse",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "seen a man about a horse",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "see<,,saw,seen> a man about a horse"
      },
      "expansion": "see a man about a horse (third-person singular simple present sees a man about a horse, present participle seeing a man about a horse, simple past saw a man about a horse, past participle seen a man about a horse)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
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        "English euphemisms",
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        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with audio links",
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        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "en:Bodily functions"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail. I've just got to visit the ladies' room to see a man about a horse.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly to use a toilet."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, euphemistic) Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly to use a toilet."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "euphemistic",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
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      "audio": "En-au-see a man about a horse.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/63/En-au-see_a_man_about_a_horse.ogg/En-au-see_a_man_about_a_horse.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/En-au-see_a_man_about_a_horse.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "all senses",
      "word": "a man"
    },
    {
      "sense": "all senses",
      "word": "a man about a dog"
    },
    {
      "sense": "use the toilet",
      "word": "a man about the plumbing"
    },
    {
      "word": "use the toilet"
    },
    {
      "word": "urinate"
    },
    {
      "word": "and Thesaurus:defecate"
    }
  ],
  "word": "see a man about a horse"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). 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.