"sorcerer's apprentice" meaning in English

See sorcerer's apprentice in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: sorcerer's apprentices [plural]
Etymology: Calque of French apprenti-sorcier, itself a calque of German Zauberlehrling. Etymology templates: {{clq|en|fr|apprenti-sorcier}} Calque of French apprenti-sorcier, {{der|en|de|Zauberlehrling}} German Zauberlehrling Head templates: {{en-noun}} sorcerer's apprentice (plural sorcerer's apprentices)
  1. (derogatory) Person who experiments carelessly, without paying attention to the possible consequences of their experiments and without the ability to contain them should they spiral out of control. Tags: derogatory Related terms: mad scientist, play God Translations (Translations): tovenaarsleerling [masculine] (Dutch), tulella leikkijä (Finnish), noidan oppipoika (Finnish), apprenti-sorcier [masculine] (French), Zauberlehrling [masculine] (German), uczeń czarnoksiężnika [masculine] (Polish), uczennica czarnoksiężnika [feminine] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-sorcerer's_apprentice-en-noun-eiMsdcxy Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for sorcerer's apprentice meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fr",
        "3": "apprenti-sorcier"
      },
      "expansion": "Calque of French apprenti-sorcier",
      "name": "clq"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "de",
        "3": "Zauberlehrling"
      },
      "expansion": "German Zauberlehrling",
      "name": "der"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Calque of French apprenti-sorcier, itself a calque of German Zauberlehrling.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sorcerer's apprentices",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "sorcerer's apprentice (plural sorcerer's apprentices)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Person who experiments carelessly, without paying attention to the possible consequences of their experiments and without the ability to contain them should they spiral out of control."
      ],
      "id": "en-sorcerer's_apprentice-en-noun-eiMsdcxy",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "experiment",
          "experiment"
        ],
        [
          "spiral",
          "spiral"
        ],
        [
          "out of control",
          "out of control"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory) Person who experiments carelessly, without paying attention to the possible consequences of their experiments and without the ability to contain them should they spiral out of control."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "mad scientist"
        },
        {
          "word": "play God"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "tovenaarsleerling"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "tulella leikkijä"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "noidan oppipoika"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "apprenti-sorcier"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Zauberlehrling"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "uczeń czarnoksiężnika"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "uczennica czarnoksiężnika"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sorcerer's apprentice"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fr",
        "3": "apprenti-sorcier"
      },
      "expansion": "Calque of French apprenti-sorcier",
      "name": "clq"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "de",
        "3": "Zauberlehrling"
      },
      "expansion": "German Zauberlehrling",
      "name": "der"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Calque of French apprenti-sorcier, itself a calque of German Zauberlehrling.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sorcerer's apprentices",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "sorcerer's apprentice (plural sorcerer's apprentices)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "mad scientist"
    },
    {
      "word": "play God"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms calqued from French",
        "English terms derived from French",
        "English terms derived from German",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Person who experiments carelessly, without paying attention to the possible consequences of their experiments and without the ability to contain them should they spiral out of control."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "experiment",
          "experiment"
        ],
        [
          "spiral",
          "spiral"
        ],
        [
          "out of control",
          "out of control"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory) Person who experiments carelessly, without paying attention to the possible consequences of their experiments and without the ability to contain them should they spiral out of control."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "tovenaarsleerling"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "tulella leikkijä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "noidan oppipoika"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "apprenti-sorcier"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Zauberlehrling"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "uczeń czarnoksiężnika"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "uczennica czarnoksiężnika"
    }
  ],
  "word": "sorcerer's apprentice"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). 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.