"take the biscuit" meaning in English

See take the biscuit in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-take the biscuit.ogg [Australia] Forms: takes the biscuit [present, singular, third-person], taking the biscuit [participle, present], took the biscuit [past], taken the biscuit [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|take<,,took,taken> the biscuit}} take the biscuit (third-person singular simple present takes the biscuit, present participle taking the biscuit, simple past took the biscuit, past participle taken the biscuit)
  1. (idiomatic, British) To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious. Tags: British, idiomatic Synonyms: that's the limit, take the cake [US], beat all Synonyms (to be particularly egregious): beat everything

Download JSON data for take the biscuit meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "takes the biscuit",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taking the biscuit",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "took the biscuit",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taken the biscuit",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "take<,,took,taken> the biscuit"
      },
      "expansion": "take the biscuit (third-person singular simple present takes the biscuit, present participle taking the biscuit, simple past took the biscuit, past participle taken the biscuit)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English light verb constructions",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I've seen bad grammar, but this takes the biscuit."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious."
      ],
      "id": "en-take_the_biscuit-en-verb-W0d~t~h1",
      "links": [
        [
          "bad",
          "bad"
        ],
        [
          "objectionable",
          "objectionable"
        ],
        [
          "egregious",
          "egregious"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, British) To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "sense": "to be particularly egregious",
          "word": "beat everything"
        },
        {
          "word": "that's the limit"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "US"
          ],
          "word": "take the cake"
        },
        {
          "word": "beat all"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-take the biscuit.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/8a/En-au-take_the_biscuit.ogg/En-au-take_the_biscuit.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/En-au-take_the_biscuit.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "take the biscuit"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "takes the biscuit",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taking the biscuit",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "took the biscuit",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taken the biscuit",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "take<,,took,taken> the biscuit"
      },
      "expansion": "take the biscuit (third-person singular simple present takes the biscuit, present participle taking the biscuit, simple past took the biscuit, past participle taken the biscuit)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English light verb constructions",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I've seen bad grammar, but this takes the biscuit."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "bad",
          "bad"
        ],
        [
          "objectionable",
          "objectionable"
        ],
        [
          "egregious",
          "egregious"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, British) To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-take the biscuit.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/8a/En-au-take_the_biscuit.ogg/En-au-take_the_biscuit.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/En-au-take_the_biscuit.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "to be particularly egregious",
      "word": "beat everything"
    },
    {
      "word": "that's the limit"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "word": "take the cake"
    },
    {
      "word": "beat all"
    }
  ],
  "word": "take the biscuit"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.