"thin blue line" meaning in English

See thin blue line in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: the thin blue line [canonical]
Etymology: By analogy with Thin Red Line. “Blue” refers to the color of the uniforms of many police departments. Etymology templates: {{m|en|Thin Red Line}} Thin Red Line Head templates: {{head|en|noun|head=the thin blue line}} the thin blue line
  1. (colloquial, collective) The police. Tags: collective, colloquial
    Sense id: en-thin_blue_line-en-noun-ArbpzIom
  2. A flag or symbol representing the police, commonly associated with the blue lives matter movement. Categories (topical): Law enforcement Related terms: blue flu, blue line, green line, red line, single yellow line, Thin Red Line
    Sense id: en-thin_blue_line-en-noun-GScCSjeZ Disambiguation of Law enforcement: 43 57

Download JSON data for thin blue line meaning in English (2.7kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Thin Red Line"
      },
      "expansion": "Thin Red Line",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "By analogy with Thin Red Line. “Blue” refers to the color of the uniforms of many police departments.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "the thin blue line",
      "tags": [
        "canonical"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun",
        "head": "the thin blue line"
      },
      "expansion": "the thin blue line",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2005-03-27, Tony Thompson, Martin Bright, “Crime wave overwhelms thin blue line”, in The Observer, →ISSN",
          "text": "Crime wave overwhelms thin blue line [title]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010-10-13, Alan Travis, “The thinner blue line – police warning over 25% budget cut”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "It followed dire warnings from the police staff associations that the possible loss of up to 40,000 police jobs would mean \"Christmas coming early\" for criminals, and the \"thin blue line\" left too stretched to cope with the inevitable risk of social and industrial unrest.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The police."
      ],
      "id": "en-thin_blue_line-en-noun-ArbpzIom",
      "links": [
        [
          "police",
          "police"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, collective) The police."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "collective",
        "colloquial"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "43 57",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Law enforcement",
          "orig": "en:Law enforcement",
          "parents": [
            "Crime prevention",
            "Emergency services",
            "Law",
            "Crime",
            "Public safety",
            "Justice",
            "Criminal law",
            "Society",
            "Public administration",
            "Security",
            "All topics",
            "Government",
            "Fundamental",
            "Politics"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020-11-21, Michael Gold, “What Happened When a School District Banned Thin Blue Line Flags”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "“Obviously, you’ve seen caravans with the Trump flag in the back of pickup trucks and then the thin blue line,” Mr. DeMasi, a former police officer, said. “I think maybe people had a good intention, but it ended up giving the meaning of the thin blue line a black eye.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A flag or symbol representing the police, commonly associated with the blue lives matter movement."
      ],
      "id": "en-thin_blue_line-en-noun-GScCSjeZ",
      "links": [
        [
          "flag",
          "flag"
        ],
        [
          "blue lives matter",
          "blue lives matter"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "blue flu"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "blue line"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "green line"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "red line"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "single yellow line"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "Thin Red Line"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "thin blue line"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "en:Law enforcement"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Thin Red Line"
      },
      "expansion": "Thin Red Line",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "By analogy with Thin Red Line. “Blue” refers to the color of the uniforms of many police departments.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "the thin blue line",
      "tags": [
        "canonical"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun",
        "head": "the thin blue line"
      },
      "expansion": "the thin blue line",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "blue flu"
    },
    {
      "word": "blue line"
    },
    {
      "word": "green line"
    },
    {
      "word": "red line"
    },
    {
      "word": "single yellow line"
    },
    {
      "word": "Thin Red Line"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English collective nouns",
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2005-03-27, Tony Thompson, Martin Bright, “Crime wave overwhelms thin blue line”, in The Observer, →ISSN",
          "text": "Crime wave overwhelms thin blue line [title]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010-10-13, Alan Travis, “The thinner blue line – police warning over 25% budget cut”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "It followed dire warnings from the police staff associations that the possible loss of up to 40,000 police jobs would mean \"Christmas coming early\" for criminals, and the \"thin blue line\" left too stretched to cope with the inevitable risk of social and industrial unrest.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The police."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "police",
          "police"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, collective) The police."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "collective",
        "colloquial"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020-11-21, Michael Gold, “What Happened When a School District Banned Thin Blue Line Flags”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "“Obviously, you’ve seen caravans with the Trump flag in the back of pickup trucks and then the thin blue line,” Mr. DeMasi, a former police officer, said. “I think maybe people had a good intention, but it ended up giving the meaning of the thin blue line a black eye.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A flag or symbol representing the police, commonly associated with the blue lives matter movement."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "flag",
          "flag"
        ],
        [
          "blue lives matter",
          "blue lives matter"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "thin blue line"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-03-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-03-01 using wiktextract (68773ab and 5f6ddbb). 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.

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