"the lights are on but nobody's home" meaning in English

See the lights are on but nobody's home in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Forms: the lights are on but no one's home [alternative]
Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} the lights are on but nobody's home
  1. (colloquial, humorous) Somebody is failing to respond, react or comprehend. Tags: colloquial, humorous
    Sense id: en-the_lights_are_on_but_nobody's_home-en-phrase-OINMa7yq Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "the lights are on but no one's home",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "the lights are on but nobody's home",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Somebody is failing to respond, react or comprehend."
      ],
      "id": "en-the_lights_are_on_but_nobody's_home-en-phrase-OINMa7yq",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "respond",
          "respond"
        ],
        [
          "react",
          "react"
        ],
        [
          "comprehend",
          "comprehend"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, humorous) Somebody is failing to respond, react or comprehend."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "humorous"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "the lights are on but nobody's home"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "the lights are on but no one's home",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "the lights are on but nobody's home",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Somebody is failing to respond, react or comprehend."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "respond",
          "respond"
        ],
        [
          "react",
          "react"
        ],
        [
          "comprehend",
          "comprehend"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, humorous) Somebody is failing to respond, react or comprehend."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "humorous"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "the lights are on but nobody's home"
}

Download raw JSONL data for the lights are on but nobody's home meaning in English (0.8kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-21 using wiktextract (fef8596 and 633533e). 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.