"walk on the wild side" meaning in English

See walk on the wild side in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-walk on the wild side.ogg [Australia] Forms: walks on the wild side [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|walks on the wild side}} walk on the wild side (plural walks on the wild side)
  1. (idiomatic) An occasion or incident involving adventurous, risky, or morally questionable behavior. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-walk_on_the_wild_side-en-noun-gRJWiVNL Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 45 55

Verb

Audio: En-au-walk on the wild side.ogg [Australia] Forms: walks on the wild side [present, singular, third-person], walking on the wild side [participle, present], walked on the wild side [participle, past], walked on the wild side [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} walk on the wild side (third-person singular simple present walks on the wild side, present participle walking on the wild side, simple past and past participle walked on the wild side)
  1. (idiomatic) To behave in an adventurous, risky, or morally questionable manner. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: take a walk on the wild side
    Sense id: en-walk_on_the_wild_side-en-verb-Z-g6m1-k Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 45 55

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for walk on the wild side meaning in English (4.1kB)

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      "form": "walks on the wild side",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "45 55",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988 March 4, Alasdair Marshall, “World of Films: High Stakes and Low Life”, in Evening Times, UK, retrieved 2013-06-20",
          "text": "[S]he is drawn inexorably into the shady, but dangerously exciting world of one of her patients, a compulsive gambler. Her walk on the wild side leads her to a low-life gambling den, The House of Games.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 December 9, “Shhh...Spy-Worthy Homes for Sale”, in Forbes, retrieved 2013-06-20",
          "text": "Thanks to the likes of James Bond, the trappings of spy-dom have long attracted jealous eyes and vivid imaginations of many who long for a walk on the wild side of espionage.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An occasion or incident involving adventurous, risky, or morally questionable behavior."
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      "id": "en-walk_on_the_wild_side-en-noun-gRJWiVNL",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An occasion or incident involving adventurous, risky, or morally questionable behavior."
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      "tags": [
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      "tags": [
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      "form": "walking on the wild side",
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      "form": "walked on the wild side",
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          "ref": "1997 September 19, Janet Maslin, “Film Review: The Dark Underbelly of a Sunny Town”, in New York Times, retrieved 2013-06-20",
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          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2000 December 17, “GM's Aztek: Born To Be A Little Too Wild”, in Businessweek, retrieved 2013-06-20",
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          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
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        "(idiomatic) To behave in an adventurous, risky, or morally questionable manner."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "take a walk on the wild side"
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      "tags": [
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        {
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          "text": "L.A. Confidential . . . walks on the wild side with brief and startling violence, fleeting nudity, sexual situations and redolent seamy details.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000 December 17, “GM's Aztek: Born To Be A Little Too Wild”, in Businessweek, retrieved 2013-06-20",
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      ],
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        "(idiomatic) To behave in an adventurous, risky, or morally questionable manner."
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      "word": "take a walk on the wild side"
    }
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 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.

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.