"watch this space" meaning in English

See watch this space in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: En-au-watch this space.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: A 19th century formula, originally placed by magazines in space which was reserved by an advertiser but for which no advertisement was ever submitted. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} watch this space
  1. (idiomatic) An indication that a development will follow. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: film at 11, stay tuned

Download JSON data for watch this space meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "A 19th century formula, originally placed by magazines in space which was reserved by an advertiser but for which no advertisement was ever submitted.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "watch this space",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English sentences",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1979 November 7, The Australian Women's Weekly, page 115, column 2",
          "text": "I fully intend to ask the talented Mr Peng to give me simplified instructions for making some of his fiery Hunan specialities; so watch this space.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 November 12, Torres News, Thursday Island, page 21, column 1",
          "text": "We all look forward to the next walk in 2013 which we all hope to be a bigger and better event - watch this space!",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An indication that a development will follow."
      ],
      "id": "en-watch_this_space-en-phrase-LHavkrS7",
      "links": [
        [
          "indication",
          "indication#English"
        ],
        [
          "development",
          "development#English"
        ],
        [
          "follow",
          "follow#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An indication that a development will follow."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "film at 11"
        },
        {
          "word": "stay tuned"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-watch this space.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d0/En-au-watch_this_space.ogg/En-au-watch_this_space.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/En-au-watch_this_space.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "watch this space"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "A 19th century formula, originally placed by magazines in space which was reserved by an advertiser but for which no advertisement was ever submitted.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "watch this space",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "film at 11"
    },
    {
      "word": "stay tuned"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English sentences",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1979 November 7, The Australian Women's Weekly, page 115, column 2",
          "text": "I fully intend to ask the talented Mr Peng to give me simplified instructions for making some of his fiery Hunan specialities; so watch this space.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 November 12, Torres News, Thursday Island, page 21, column 1",
          "text": "We all look forward to the next walk in 2013 which we all hope to be a bigger and better event - watch this space!",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An indication that a development will follow."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "indication",
          "indication#English"
        ],
        [
          "development",
          "development#English"
        ],
        [
          "follow",
          "follow#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An indication that a development will follow."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-watch this space.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d0/En-au-watch_this_space.ogg/En-au-watch_this_space.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/En-au-watch_this_space.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "watch this space"
}

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.

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.