"unsinkable rubber duck" meaning in English

See unsinkable rubber duck in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: unsinkable rubber ducks [plural]
Etymology: Coined by James Randi, by analogy to the way a rubber duck will pop back up to the surface after being submerged. Head templates: {{en-noun|head=unsinkable rubber duck}} unsinkable rubber duck (plural unsinkable rubber ducks)
  1. A belief in a supernatural or paranormal phenomenon that people continue to hold, in spite of it being debunked. Wikipedia link: James Randi
    Sense id: en-unsinkable_rubber_duck-en-noun-N22iJH1a Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for unsinkable rubber duck meaning in English (1.9kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by James Randi, by analogy to the way a rubber duck will pop back up to the surface after being submerged.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "unsinkable rubber ducks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "head": "unsinkable rubber duck"
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      "expansion": "unsinkable rubber duck (plural unsinkable rubber ducks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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      "categories": [
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010, Paul Kurtz, Exuberant Skepticism, page 179",
          "text": "Indeed, even if they are thoroughly examined and refuted in one age, they seem to reemerge within the next, and people will continue to believe them in spite of evidence to the contrary. This is what I have called the “unsinkable rubber duck” syndrome.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Lawrence R Samuel, Supernatural America: A Cultural History, page 120",
          "text": "As a self-proclaimed “spokesman for rationality,” The Skeptical Inquirer documented every major gaffe made by Jeane Dixon (“the unsinkable rubber duck of prophecy”) and took special pleasure debunking SRI's Geller experiments.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Nate Hendley, The Big Con",
          "text": "John, this is an unsinkable rubber duck. They're all unsinkable rubber ducks. There's no way we're going to get rid of them, because people don't listen.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A belief in a supernatural or paranormal phenomenon that people continue to hold, in spite of it being debunked."
      ],
      "id": "en-unsinkable_rubber_duck-en-noun-N22iJH1a",
      "links": [
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        ],
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        [
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        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
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      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "unsinkable rubber duck"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by James Randi, by analogy to the way a rubber duck will pop back up to the surface after being submerged.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "unsinkable rubber ducks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "unsinkable rubber duck"
      },
      "expansion": "unsinkable rubber duck (plural unsinkable rubber ducks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
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        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010, Paul Kurtz, Exuberant Skepticism, page 179",
          "text": "Indeed, even if they are thoroughly examined and refuted in one age, they seem to reemerge within the next, and people will continue to believe them in spite of evidence to the contrary. This is what I have called the “unsinkable rubber duck” syndrome.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Lawrence R Samuel, Supernatural America: A Cultural History, page 120",
          "text": "As a self-proclaimed “spokesman for rationality,” The Skeptical Inquirer documented every major gaffe made by Jeane Dixon (“the unsinkable rubber duck of prophecy”) and took special pleasure debunking SRI's Geller experiments.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Nate Hendley, The Big Con",
          "text": "John, this is an unsinkable rubber duck. They're all unsinkable rubber ducks. There's no way we're going to get rid of them, because people don't listen.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A belief in a supernatural or paranormal phenomenon that people continue to hold, in spite of it being debunked."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
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        ],
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        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "James Randi"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "unsinkable rubber duck"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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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