throw away the key in English

Forms: throws away the key [present, singular, third-person], throwing away the key [participle, present], threw away the key [past], thrown away the key [participle, past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Etymology: An ellipsis of lock someone up and throw away the key. Head templates: {{en-verb|throw<,,threw,thrown> away the key|head=throw away the key}} throw away the key (third-person singular simple present throws away the key, present participle throwing away the key, simple past threw away the key, past participle thrown away the key)

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "An ellipsis of lock someone up and throw away the key.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "throws away the key",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "throwing away the key",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "threw away the key",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "thrown away the key",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "throw<,,threw,thrown> away the key",
        "head": "throw away the key"
      },
      "expansion": "throw away the key (third-person singular simple present throws away the key, present participle throwing away the key, simple past threw away the key, past participle thrown away the key)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English light verb constructions",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1995 November 19, “Senators Pete Domenici and John Breaux Discuss the Shutdown of the Federal Government”, in CBS Face Nation:",
          "text": "Let's get these men together in a room and I would suggest feed them bread and water and throw away the key until they come together",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To never release someone (e.g., from prison)."
      ],
      "id": "en-throw_away_the_key-en-verb-0Sr5-PhP"
    }
  ],
  "word": "throw away the key"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "An ellipsis of lock someone up and throw away the key.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "throws away the key",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "throwing away the key",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "threw away the key",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "thrown away the key",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "throw<,,threw,thrown> away the key",
        "head": "throw away the key"
      },
      "expansion": "throw away the key (third-person singular simple present throws away the key, present participle throwing away the key, simple past threw away the key, past participle thrown away the key)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English ellipses",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English light verb constructions",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1995 November 19, “Senators Pete Domenici and John Breaux Discuss the Shutdown of the Federal Government”, in CBS Face Nation:",
          "text": "Let's get these men together in a room and I would suggest feed them bread and water and throw away the key until they come together",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To never release someone (e.g., from prison)."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "throw away the key"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). 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.

"throw away the key" meaning in English

Verb