"turnip for the book" meaning in English

See turnip for the book in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-turnip for the book.wav Forms: turnip for the books [alternative]
Etymology: A humorous variation on turn up for the book. Head templates: {{en-noun|?}} turnip for the book
  1. (humorous) A very unexpected surprise or occurrence. Tags: humorous
    Sense id: en-turnip_for_the_book-en-noun-xYrkmlgr Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "etymology_text": "A humorous variation on turn up for the book.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "turnip for the books",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "turnip for the book",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              50,
              70
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1974, Gordon Williams, Big Morning Blues, London […]: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN, page 102:",
          "text": "You've got these Swedes in your office—that was a turnip for the books. Do go on.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              143,
              162
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1999, Terry Deary, The Savage Stone Age, London: Hippo, →ISBN, page 43:",
          "text": "Swedes fired arrows into their corpses, though we don't know why. (This is better than corpses firing arrows into swedes which would be a real turnip for the book.)",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A very unexpected surprise or occurrence."
      ],
      "id": "en-turnip_for_the_book-en-noun-xYrkmlgr",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "surprise",
          "surprise#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "occurrence",
          "occurrence#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(humorous) A very unexpected surprise or occurrence."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-turnip for the book.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/60/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-turnip_for_the_book.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-turnip_for_the_book.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/60/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-turnip_for_the_book.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-turnip_for_the_book.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "turnip for the book"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "A humorous variation on turn up for the book.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "turnip for the books",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "turnip for the book",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              50,
              70
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1974, Gordon Williams, Big Morning Blues, London […]: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN, page 102:",
          "text": "You've got these Swedes in your office—that was a turnip for the books. Do go on.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              143,
              162
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1999, Terry Deary, The Savage Stone Age, London: Hippo, →ISBN, page 43:",
          "text": "Swedes fired arrows into their corpses, though we don't know why. (This is better than corpses firing arrows into swedes which would be a real turnip for the book.)",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A very unexpected surprise or occurrence."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "surprise",
          "surprise#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "occurrence",
          "occurrence#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(humorous) A very unexpected surprise or occurrence."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-turnip for the book.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/60/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-turnip_for_the_book.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-turnip_for_the_book.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/60/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-turnip_for_the_book.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-turnip_for_the_book.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "turnip for the book"
}

Download raw JSONL data for turnip for the book meaning in English (1.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (74c5344 and fb63907). 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.