"sympathy is between shit and syphilis" meaning in English

See sympathy is between shit and syphilis in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Etymology: An allusion to the alphabetical position of the word sympathy in a dictionary. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} sympathy is between shit and syphilis
  1. (colloquial, vulgar, humorous, derogatory) A dismissal of a person seeking sympathy, telling them to look elsewhere. Tags: colloquial, derogatory, humorous, vulgar
    Sense id: en-sympathy_is_between_shit_and_syphilis-en-phrase-ikQdjHlx Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for sympathy is between shit and syphilis meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to the alphabetical position of the word sympathy in a dictionary.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "sympathy is between shit and syphilis",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Bill Harding, Growler, page 93",
          "text": "Murphy stared out of the window. \"If you're looking for sympathy, take a look in Webster's dictionary. Try between 'shit' and 'syphilis'.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Carl E. Prichard, Silent Agony, page 100",
          "text": "I told you before if you are looking for sympathy, it's in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Other than that you get nothing from me.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Chip Giles, The Conch Killers, page 56",
          "text": "\"Sympathy. Wait, let me get it right. Okaaay, I know. You're supposed to look in the dictionary. That's it! Then you'll find sympathy between shit and syphilis. There! That's it!\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Richard Marcinko, John Weisman, Detachment Bravo",
          "text": "The master chief I call Boomerang, who knows that sympathy is the word that sits in the SEAL dictionary between shit and syphilis, reminded me that if we were going to take the fuckin' tangos down, I'd better stop wasting time […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Mark D Holroyd, Frog Tales, page 225",
          "text": "Everyone knows sympathy is between shit and syphilis in the dictionary, and you don't want either of them, but Ted was about to get at least one!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "2022, Famously quoted by Sarah Platt during the 23/3/22 edition of Coronation Street. Although the word ‘shit’ was changed to ‘shame’ due to the watershed nature of the show."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A dismissal of a person seeking sympathy, telling them to look elsewhere."
      ],
      "id": "en-sympathy_is_between_shit_and_syphilis-en-phrase-ikQdjHlx",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, vulgar, humorous, derogatory) A dismissal of a person seeking sympathy, telling them to look elsewhere."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "derogatory",
        "humorous",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sympathy is between shit and syphilis"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to the alphabetical position of the word sympathy in a dictionary.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "sympathy is between shit and syphilis",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English vulgarities",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Bill Harding, Growler, page 93",
          "text": "Murphy stared out of the window. \"If you're looking for sympathy, take a look in Webster's dictionary. Try between 'shit' and 'syphilis'.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Carl E. Prichard, Silent Agony, page 100",
          "text": "I told you before if you are looking for sympathy, it's in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Other than that you get nothing from me.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Chip Giles, The Conch Killers, page 56",
          "text": "\"Sympathy. Wait, let me get it right. Okaaay, I know. You're supposed to look in the dictionary. That's it! Then you'll find sympathy between shit and syphilis. There! That's it!\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Richard Marcinko, John Weisman, Detachment Bravo",
          "text": "The master chief I call Boomerang, who knows that sympathy is the word that sits in the SEAL dictionary between shit and syphilis, reminded me that if we were going to take the fuckin' tangos down, I'd better stop wasting time […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Mark D Holroyd, Frog Tales, page 225",
          "text": "Everyone knows sympathy is between shit and syphilis in the dictionary, and you don't want either of them, but Ted was about to get at least one!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "2022, Famously quoted by Sarah Platt during the 23/3/22 edition of Coronation Street. Although the word ‘shit’ was changed to ‘shame’ due to the watershed nature of the show."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A dismissal of a person seeking sympathy, telling them to look elsewhere."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, vulgar, humorous, derogatory) A dismissal of a person seeking sympathy, telling them to look elsewhere."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "derogatory",
        "humorous",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sympathy is between shit and syphilis"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). 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.