See tread the boards in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for tread the boards meaning in English (7.3kB)
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"2": "monter sur les planches"
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"etymology_text": "From the fact that theatre stages are often made of wooden boards which are trodden by actors. Compare French monter sur les planches.",
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"text": "He seems to think that he's the greatest actor who's ever trod the boards.",
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"text": "[…] I vvent, on the follovving morning, to the theatre to rehearſe; and my ignorance of ſome ſtage cuſtoms, vvhen I arrived there, vvas eaſily conſtrued into my confuſion, at rehearſing in a ſtrange company, vvhich any one vvho has ever trodden the boards, knovvs to be a much more formidable ordeal, than the actual performance at night; […]",
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"ref": "1867, Thomas Lake Harris, chapter II, in Arcana of Christianity: An Unfolding of the Celestial Sense of the Divine Word, […] Part III.—The Apocalypse, volume I, New York, N.Y., London: Brotherhood of the New Life, →OCLC, section 234, page 125",
"text": "The sleek bigot of the conventicle is a more superb actor than the applauded mime who treads the boards.",
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{
"ref": "1957, Lillian de la Torre, “The Tragic Muse”, in The Actress; being the Story of Sarah Siddons […], Edinburgh, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Nelson & Sons, →OCLC, page 201",
"text": "Jack and Stephen, treading the boards together in Dublin, could not be summoned so fast.",
"type": "quotation"
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{
"ref": "1999 May, David Savran, “Introduction: The Haunted Stage”, in The Playwright’s Voice: American Dramatists on Memory, Writing and the Politics of Culture, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Communications Group, page xvii",
"text": "As Mac Wellman's Crowbar so powerfully suggests, every performance, like every theatre building, is haunted by what has come before, by the ghosts of characters and actors who have trod the boards.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2018, Gordon Corera, Operation Columba: The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow and Company",
"text": "He spent eight years before the war treading the boards as a professional actor in repertory theaters in Manchester.",
"type": "quotation"
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{
"ref": "2019, William W[allace] Johnstone, with J. A. Johnstone, chapter 36, in The Jackals, New York, N.Y.: Pinnacle Books, Kensington Publishing Corp., page 357",
"text": "Low comedy. Not fit for a thespian like me. If you want burletta, go to a saloon. I, sir, am Sir Theodore Cannon, and have treaded the boards with Booth, and with Bartlett.",
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{
"_dis1": "86 14",
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "igraja v teatǎr",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "играя в театър"
},
{
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"code": "fi",
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"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "olla näyttämöllä"
},
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"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "monter sur les planches"
},
{
"_dis1": "86 14",
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "calcàre le scene"
},
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"word": "pisar las tablas"
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"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "troedio'r llwyfan"
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"To write plays for the theatre."
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"(figuratively) To write plays for the theatre."
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"word": "kirjoittaa näyttämölle"
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"tags": [
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"word": "tread the boards"
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"text": "He seems to think that he's the greatest actor who's ever trod the boards.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1799, Francis Lathom, “The Second Part of the Same Story”, in Men and Manners, […], volume III, London: […] J. Wright, […]; and H. D. Symonds, […], →OCLC, page 215",
"text": "[…] I vvent, on the follovving morning, to the theatre to rehearſe; and my ignorance of ſome ſtage cuſtoms, vvhen I arrived there, vvas eaſily conſtrued into my confuſion, at rehearſing in a ſtrange company, vvhich any one vvho has ever trodden the boards, knovvs to be a much more formidable ordeal, than the actual performance at night; […]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1867, Thomas Lake Harris, chapter II, in Arcana of Christianity: An Unfolding of the Celestial Sense of the Divine Word, […] Part III.—The Apocalypse, volume I, New York, N.Y., London: Brotherhood of the New Life, →OCLC, section 234, page 125",
"text": "The sleek bigot of the conventicle is a more superb actor than the applauded mime who treads the boards.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1957, Lillian de la Torre, “The Tragic Muse”, in The Actress; being the Story of Sarah Siddons […], Edinburgh, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Nelson & Sons, →OCLC, page 201",
"text": "Jack and Stephen, treading the boards together in Dublin, could not be summoned so fast.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1999 May, David Savran, “Introduction: The Haunted Stage”, in The Playwright’s Voice: American Dramatists on Memory, Writing and the Politics of Culture, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Communications Group, page xvii",
"text": "As Mac Wellman's Crowbar so powerfully suggests, every performance, like every theatre building, is haunted by what has come before, by the ghosts of characters and actors who have trod the boards.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2018, Gordon Corera, Operation Columba: The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow and Company",
"text": "He spent eight years before the war treading the boards as a professional actor in repertory theaters in Manchester.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2019, William W[allace] Johnstone, with J. A. Johnstone, chapter 36, in The Jackals, New York, N.Y.: Pinnacle Books, Kensington Publishing Corp., page 357",
"text": "Low comedy. Not fit for a thespian like me. If you want burletta, go to a saloon. I, sir, am Sir Theodore Cannon, and have treaded the boards with Booth, and with Bartlett.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To work as a theatre actor."
],
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[
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"word": "tread the stage"
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{
"word": "walk the boards"
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"(figuratively) To write plays for the theatre."
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"tags": [
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"translations": [
{
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "igraja v teatǎr",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "играя в театър"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "olla näyttämöllä"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "monter sur les planches"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "calcàre le scene"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"tags": [
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"rare"
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"word": "aktorować"
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{
"code": "pl",
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"word": "występować na deskach"
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{
"code": "pl",
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"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"tags": [
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"word": "wystąpić na deskach"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "pisar las tablas"
},
{
"code": "cy",
"lang": "Welsh",
"sense": "to work as an theatre actor",
"word": "troedio'r llwyfan"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "to write plays for the theatre",
"word": "kirjoittaa näyttämölle"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Gratien Gélinas"
],
"word": "tread the boards"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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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