"the writing is on the wall" meaning in English

See the writing is on the wall in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Etymology: From the Biblical story in Daniel 5 where mysterious writing appearing on a wall during a feast held by King Belshazzar points to the downfall of the Babylonian Empire: see writing on the wall. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} the writing is on the wall
  1. Disaster is imminent. Wikipedia link: Belshazzar Related terms: someone's goose is cooked, writing on the wall Translations (Translations): katastrofin merkit ovat ilmassa (Finnish), les carottes sont cuites (French), nieszczęście wisi w powietrzu (Polish), cuando las barbas de tu vecino veas pelar, pon las tuyas a remojar (english: proverb) (Spanish)

Alternative forms

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  "etymology_text": "From the Biblical story in Daniel 5 where mysterious writing appearing on a wall during a feast held by King Belshazzar points to the downfall of the Babylonian Empire: see writing on the wall.",
  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "the writing is on the wall",
      "name": "head"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Disaster is imminent."
      ],
      "id": "en-the_writing_is_on_the_wall-en-phrase-uPLjrxUy",
      "links": [
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          "disaster"
        ],
        [
          "imminent",
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        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "someone's goose is cooked"
        },
        {
          "word": "writing on the wall"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "katastrofin merkit ovat ilmassa"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "les carottes sont cuites"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "nieszczęście wisi w powietrzu"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
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          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "cuando las barbas de tu vecino veas pelar, pon las tuyas a remojar"
        }
      ],
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        "Belshazzar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "the writing is on the wall"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the Biblical story in Daniel 5 where mysterious writing appearing on a wall during a feast held by King Belshazzar points to the downfall of the Babylonian Empire: see writing on the wall.",
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      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "katastrofin merkit ovat ilmassa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "les carottes sont cuites"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "nieszczęście wisi w powietrzu"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "english": "proverb",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "cuando las barbas de tu vecino veas pelar, pon las tuyas a remojar"
    }
  ],
  "word": "the writing is on the wall"
}

Download raw JSONL data for the writing is on the wall meaning in English (1.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.