"twinkle in one's father's eye" meaning in English

See twinkle in one's father's eye in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-twinkle in one's father's eye.ogg [Australia] Forms: twinkles in their fathers' eyes [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|twinkles in their fathers' eyes}} twinkle in one's father's eye (plural twinkles in their fathers' eyes)
  1. (idiomatic, colloquial, humorous) A notional look of anticipation or hope (either for sex or a child) in one's father's eyes at or around the time of one's conception. Tags: colloquial, humorous, idiomatic Synonyms: glint in the milkman's eye, twinkle in one's daddy's eye
    Sense id: en-twinkle_in_one's_father's_eye-en-noun-Gk~s-cBo Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for twinkle in one's father's eye meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "twinkles in their fathers' eyes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "twinkles in their fathers' eyes"
      },
      "expansion": "twinkle in one's father's eye (plural twinkles in their fathers' eyes)",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1975, Terry Blake, The Fig Tree, Aim Publishing (1975), page 26",
          "text": "Kimberly handed him a whisky and said: \"So's that, my boy. Forty-eight-year-old Glenlivet. This was a connoisseur's drop before you were a twinkle in your father's eye.\""
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, Martina Cole, Dangerous Lady, Headline Publishing, published 2008",
          "text": "'Don't you take the piss out of me, sonny. I was doing this job when you were just a drunken twinkle in your father's eye!'",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Max Overton, Jim Darley, Sequestered, Sequestered Books",
          "text": "“Thirty years ago you would not even have been a twinkle in your father's eye.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A notional look of anticipation or hope (either for sex or a child) in one's father's eyes at or around the time of one's conception."
      ],
      "id": "en-twinkle_in_one's_father's_eye-en-noun-Gk~s-cBo",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "look",
          "look"
        ],
        [
          "anticipation",
          "anticipation"
        ],
        [
          "hope",
          "hope"
        ],
        [
          "sex",
          "sex"
        ],
        [
          "child",
          "child"
        ],
        [
          "conception",
          "conception"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, colloquial, humorous) A notional look of anticipation or hope (either for sex or a child) in one's father's eyes at or around the time of one's conception."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "glint in the milkman's eye"
        },
        {
          "word": "twinkle in one's daddy's eye"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "humorous",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-twinkle in one's father's eye.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cf/En-au-twinkle_in_one%27s_father%27s_eye.ogg/En-au-twinkle_in_one%27s_father%27s_eye.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/En-au-twinkle_in_one%27s_father%27s_eye.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "twinkle in one's father's eye"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "twinkles in their fathers' eyes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "twinkles in their fathers' eyes"
      },
      "expansion": "twinkle in one's father's eye (plural twinkles in their fathers' eyes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1975, Terry Blake, The Fig Tree, Aim Publishing (1975), page 26",
          "text": "Kimberly handed him a whisky and said: \"So's that, my boy. Forty-eight-year-old Glenlivet. This was a connoisseur's drop before you were a twinkle in your father's eye.\""
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, Martina Cole, Dangerous Lady, Headline Publishing, published 2008",
          "text": "'Don't you take the piss out of me, sonny. I was doing this job when you were just a drunken twinkle in your father's eye!'",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Max Overton, Jim Darley, Sequestered, Sequestered Books",
          "text": "“Thirty years ago you would not even have been a twinkle in your father's eye.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A notional look of anticipation or hope (either for sex or a child) in one's father's eyes at or around the time of one's conception."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "look",
          "look"
        ],
        [
          "anticipation",
          "anticipation"
        ],
        [
          "hope",
          "hope"
        ],
        [
          "sex",
          "sex"
        ],
        [
          "child",
          "child"
        ],
        [
          "conception",
          "conception"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, colloquial, humorous) A notional look of anticipation or hope (either for sex or a child) in one's father's eyes at or around the time of one's conception."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "humorous",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "En-au-twinkle in one's father's eye.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cf/En-au-twinkle_in_one%27s_father%27s_eye.ogg/En-au-twinkle_in_one%27s_father%27s_eye.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/En-au-twinkle_in_one%27s_father%27s_eye.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "glint in the milkman's eye"
    },
    {
      "word": "twinkle in one's daddy's eye"
    }
  ],
  "word": "twinkle in one's father's eye"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). 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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