"stop the lights" meaning in English

See stop the lights in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

Audio: En-au-stop the lights.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: * Originated as a catchphrase on the Irish quiz show Quicksilver, where contestants called out "Stop the lights" when they did not know the answer, to prevent loss of prize money for the next questions. Head templates: {{en-interj}} stop the lights
  1. (Ireland, idiomatic) An interjection expressing exasperation or incredulity. or to illustrate the humour in a situation. Tags: Ireland, idiomatic

Download JSON data for stop the lights meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "* Originated as a catchphrase on the Irish quiz show Quicksilver, where contestants called out \"Stop the lights\" when they did not know the answer, to prevent loss of prize money for the next questions.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "stop the lights",
      "name": "en-interj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "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"
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          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
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          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Irish English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Stella Feehily, Duck, page 62",
          "text": "Sure, stop the lights, I know all about it. There's a great shop in Phibsboro.Transformations' Any size you want.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Ronan Noone, The Lepers of Baile Baiste, page 57",
          "text": "Oh, stop the lights. The Priest is after parkin' across the street. I think he's comin' over here.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An interjection expressing exasperation or incredulity. or to illustrate the humour in a situation."
      ],
      "id": "en-stop_the_lights-en-intj-LBbby3mv",
      "links": [
        [
          "interjection",
          "interjection"
        ],
        [
          "exasperation",
          "exasperation"
        ],
        [
          "incredulity",
          "incredulity"
        ],
        [
          "humour",
          "humour"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Ireland, idiomatic) An interjection expressing exasperation or incredulity. or to illustrate the humour in a situation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-stop the lights.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7e/En-au-stop_the_lights.ogg/En-au-stop_the_lights.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/En-au-stop_the_lights.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "stop the lights"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "* Originated as a catchphrase on the Irish quiz show Quicksilver, where contestants called out \"Stop the lights\" when they did not know the answer, to prevent loss of prize money for the next questions.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "stop the lights",
      "name": "en-interj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English interjections",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English sentences",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Irish English",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Stella Feehily, Duck, page 62",
          "text": "Sure, stop the lights, I know all about it. There's a great shop in Phibsboro.Transformations' Any size you want.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Ronan Noone, The Lepers of Baile Baiste, page 57",
          "text": "Oh, stop the lights. The Priest is after parkin' across the street. I think he's comin' over here.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An interjection expressing exasperation or incredulity. or to illustrate the humour in a situation."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "interjection",
          "interjection"
        ],
        [
          "exasperation",
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        ],
        [
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        ],
        [
          "humour",
          "humour"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Ireland, idiomatic) An interjection expressing exasperation or incredulity. or to illustrate the humour in a situation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-stop the lights.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7e/En-au-stop_the_lights.ogg/En-au-stop_the_lights.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/En-au-stop_the_lights.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "stop the lights"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-22 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (fc4f0c7 and c937495). 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.