"sing for one's supper" meaning in English

See sing for one's supper in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: sings for one's supper [present, singular, third-person], singing for one's supper [participle, present], sang for one's supper [past], sung for one's supper [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|sing<,,sang,sung> for one's supper}} sing for one's supper (third-person singular simple present sings for one's supper, present participle singing for one's supper, simple past sang for one's supper, past participle sung for one's supper)
  1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To work in exchange for some reward or recompense. Tags: idiomatic, intransitive Related terms: for a song
    Sense id: en-sing_for_one's_supper-en-verb-YEC8XKMu Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sings for one's supper",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "singing for one's supper",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sang for one's supper",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sung for one's supper",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "sing<,,sang,sung> for one's supper"
      },
      "expansion": "sing for one's supper (third-person singular simple present sings for one's supper, present participle singing for one's supper, simple past sang for one's supper, past participle sung for one's supper)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To work in exchange for some reward or recompense."
      ],
      "id": "en-sing_for_one's_supper-en-verb-YEC8XKMu",
      "links": [
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "reward",
          "reward"
        ],
        [
          "recompense",
          "recompense"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To work in exchange for some reward or recompense."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "for a song"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sing for one's supper"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sings for one's supper",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "singing for one's supper",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sang for one's supper",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sung for one's supper",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "sing<,,sang,sung> for one's supper"
      },
      "expansion": "sing for one's supper (third-person singular simple present sings for one's supper, present participle singing for one's supper, simple past sang for one's supper, past participle sung for one's supper)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "for a song"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To work in exchange for some reward or recompense."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "reward",
          "reward"
        ],
        [
          "recompense",
          "recompense"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To work in exchange for some reward or recompense."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sing for one's supper"
}

Download raw JSONL data for sing for one's supper meaning in English (1.2kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-27 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (a4e883e and f1c2b61). 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.