"squeaky wheel" meaning in English

See squeaky wheel in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: squeaky wheels [plural]
Etymology: From the proverb "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"/oil. Head templates: {{en-noun}} squeaky wheel (plural squeaky wheels)
  1. A complainer; one who speaks out when there are problems (often pejorative). Categories (topical): People Synonyms: spokesperson, troublemaker, whiner
    Sense id: en-squeaky_wheel-en-noun-~5MtYfqz Disambiguation of People: 98 2 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 64 36 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 69 31 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 71 29
  2. Of several problems, the most apparent or the most urgent.
    Sense id: en-squeaky_wheel-en-noun-eMrngzqO

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for squeaky wheel meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the proverb \"the squeaky wheel gets the grease\"/oil.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "squeaky wheels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "squeaky wheel (plural squeaky wheels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "64 36",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "69 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "71 29",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "98 2",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1997, Lauch Faircloth, editor, Hud Rebuilding and Loan Guaranty Program",
          "text": "When I went to those who we needed to get the resources from, I got the title of being the squeaky wheel. Everyone is not going to be a squeaky wheel, but I believe that if we want something and are persistent enough, we will get it...",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A complainer; one who speaks out when there are problems (often pejorative)."
      ],
      "id": "en-squeaky_wheel-en-noun-~5MtYfqz",
      "links": [
        [
          "complainer",
          "complainer"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "64 36",
          "word": "spokesperson"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "64 36",
          "word": "troublemaker"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "64 36",
          "word": "whiner"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1999, State of the Petroleum Industry; Hearing the Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, U.S. Senate",
          "text": "And it is pretty hard to get government, as you know, ahead of the curve. We always respond to the squeaky wheel when things get bad, but you know, clearly there is food for thought in the observation of where we are in our commodity industries.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of several problems, the most apparent or the most urgent."
      ],
      "id": "en-squeaky_wheel-en-noun-eMrngzqO",
      "links": [
        [
          "urgent",
          "urgent"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "squeaky wheel"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
    "en:People"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From the proverb \"the squeaky wheel gets the grease\"/oil.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "squeaky wheels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "squeaky wheel (plural squeaky wheels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1997, Lauch Faircloth, editor, Hud Rebuilding and Loan Guaranty Program",
          "text": "When I went to those who we needed to get the resources from, I got the title of being the squeaky wheel. Everyone is not going to be a squeaky wheel, but I believe that if we want something and are persistent enough, we will get it...",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A complainer; one who speaks out when there are problems (often pejorative)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "complainer",
          "complainer"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1999, State of the Petroleum Industry; Hearing the Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, U.S. Senate",
          "text": "And it is pretty hard to get government, as you know, ahead of the curve. We always respond to the squeaky wheel when things get bad, but you know, clearly there is food for thought in the observation of where we are in our commodity industries.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of several problems, the most apparent or the most urgent."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "urgent",
          "urgent"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "spokesperson"
    },
    {
      "word": "troublemaker"
    },
    {
      "word": "whiner"
    }
  ],
  "word": "squeaky wheel"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.