"see a man" meaning in English

See see a man in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-see a man.ogg [Australia] Forms: sees a man [present, singular, third-person], seeing a man [participle, present], saw a man [past], seen a man [participle, past]
Etymology: A clipped form of see a man about a dog. 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}} see a man (third-person singular simple present sees a man, present participle seeing a man, simple past saw a man, past participle seen a man)
  1. (idiomatic, dated) Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly (euphemistic) to use the toilet or (historical) drink alcohol. Tags: dated, idiomatic Categories (topical): Bodily functions Synonyms: use the toilet, urinate, and Thesaurus:defecate Synonyms (all senses): a man about a horse, a man about a dog Synonyms (use the toilet): a man about the plumbing

Download JSON data for see a man meaning in English (3.0kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "see a man about a dog"
      },
      "expansion": "see a man about a dog",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "A clipped form of see a man about a dog.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sees a man",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "seeing a man",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saw a man",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "seen a man",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "see<,,saw,seen> a man"
      },
      "expansion": "see a man (third-person singular simple present sees a man, present participle seeing a man, simple past saw a man, past participle seen a man)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "name": "Bodily functions",
          "parents": [
            "Body",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English euphemisms",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1867 September 12, Ball Players' Chronicle, page 3",
          "text": "Although they were all out, at the bases, and the rest of our nine having gone to see a man there was nobody to take the bat.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "I'll be right back. I've just got to go to the ladies' room to see a man."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly (euphemistic) to use the toilet or (historical) drink alcohol."
      ],
      "id": "en-see_a_man-en-verb-JNFyVZUh",
      "links": [
        [
          "euphemistic",
          "Appendix:Glossary#euphemism"
        ],
        [
          "use the toilet",
          "use the toilet#English"
        ],
        [
          "historical",
          "Appendix:Glossary#historical"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, dated) Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly (euphemistic) to use the toilet or (historical) drink alcohol."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "sense": "all senses",
          "word": "a man about a horse"
        },
        {
          "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": [
        "dated",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-see a man.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/47/En-au-see_a_man.ogg/En-au-see_a_man.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/En-au-see_a_man.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "see a man"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "see a man about a dog"
      },
      "expansion": "see a man about a dog",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "A clipped form of see a man about a dog.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sees a man",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "seeing a man",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saw a man",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "seen a man",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "see<,,saw,seen> a man"
      },
      "expansion": "see a man (third-person singular simple present sees a man, present participle seeing a man, simple past saw a man, past participle seen a man)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Bodily functions",
        "English clippings",
        "English dated terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English euphemisms",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with historical senses",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1867 September 12, Ball Players' Chronicle, page 3",
          "text": "Although they were all out, at the bases, and the rest of our nine having gone to see a man there was nobody to take the bat.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "I'll be right back. I've just got to go to the ladies' room to see a man."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly (euphemistic) to use the toilet or (historical) drink alcohol."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "euphemistic",
          "Appendix:Glossary#euphemism"
        ],
        [
          "use the toilet",
          "use the toilet#English"
        ],
        [
          "historical",
          "Appendix:Glossary#historical"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, dated) Used in place of a real explanation when excusing oneself for a short period of time, particularly (euphemistic) to use the toilet or (historical) drink alcohol."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-see a man.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/47/En-au-see_a_man.ogg/En-au-see_a_man.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/En-au-see_a_man.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "all senses",
      "word": "a man about a horse"
    },
    {
      "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"
}

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.