See wetback in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "First used in the 1920s from the presumed effects of swimming or wading across the Rio Grande. Used by the U.S. Government in 1954 with Operation Wetback.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "wetbacks",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "wetback (plural wetbacks)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "illegal alien"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "illegals"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "96 4",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "97 3",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English ethnic slurs",
"parents": [
"Ethnic slurs",
"Offensive terms",
"Terms by usage"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "97 3",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "97 3",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "99 1",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "99 1",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "1920, Temporary admission of illiterate Mexican laborers: Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 66th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 141,\nMr. HUDSPETH. […] I stood here and did all in my power to keep the “wetback” […] from coming across. And I stand here to-day asking for that.\nThe CHAIRMAN. […] What is a “wetback”?\nMr. HUDSPETH. You have heard a “wetback” described; he is a fellow that crosses the river surreptitiously."
},
{
"ref": "1950 March 27, “United Nations: Objectivity”, in Time:",
"text": "The charges against the U.S. had cited cases of peonage and labor under forced contracts in Maine, Connecticut, Texas, Arkansas, Georgia and California. They had revealed that thousands of “wetbacks” (i.e., Mexican laborers who wade the Rio Grande in search of work in the U.S.) lived in squalor and poverty, sometimes were paid as little as $8 a week.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1997, Saul Bellow, The Actual, New York: Viking, page 12:",
"text": "He went through a couple of bottles of wine and made a speech denouncing wetbacks and Asian immigrants.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, John Irving, chapter 2, in Avenue of Mysteries, Canada: Knopf:",
"text": "A successful wetback, the limo driver was thinking—that was his assessment of his Mexican-American passenger.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A Mexican or Central American who illegally enters the United States of America from its southern border."
],
"id": "en-wetback-en-noun-lDNhCfBd",
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"Mexican",
"Mexican"
],
[
"illegal",
"illegal"
],
[
"United States of America",
"United States of America"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(derogatory slang) A Mexican or Central American who illegally enters the United States of America from its southern border."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "mojado"
}
],
"tags": [
"derogatory",
"slang"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Mexican or Central American who illegally enters the United States",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mojado"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Mexican or Central American who illegally enters the United States",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
"word": "espalda mojada"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"glosses": [
"A person of the mestizo race; a mojado."
],
"id": "en-wetback-en-noun--z-7ceJN",
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"mestizo",
"mestizo"
],
[
"mojado",
"mojado"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(derogatory slang) A person of the mestizo race; a mojado."
],
"tags": [
"derogatory",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"enpr": "wĕtbăk"
},
{
"ipa": "/wɛtbæk/"
},
{
"audio": "En-au-wetback.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f1/En-au-wetback.ogg/En-au-wetback.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/En-au-wetback.ogg"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"1920",
"Operation Wetback",
"Rio Grande",
"wetback (slur)"
],
"word": "wetback"
}
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English ethnic slurs",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Spanish translations"
],
"etymology_text": "First used in the 1920s from the presumed effects of swimming or wading across the Rio Grande. Used by the U.S. Government in 1954 with Operation Wetback.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "wetbacks",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "wetback (plural wetbacks)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "illegal alien"
},
{
"word": "illegals"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English derogatory terms",
"English slang",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "1920, Temporary admission of illiterate Mexican laborers: Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 66th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 141,\nMr. HUDSPETH. […] I stood here and did all in my power to keep the “wetback” […] from coming across. And I stand here to-day asking for that.\nThe CHAIRMAN. […] What is a “wetback”?\nMr. HUDSPETH. You have heard a “wetback” described; he is a fellow that crosses the river surreptitiously."
},
{
"ref": "1950 March 27, “United Nations: Objectivity”, in Time:",
"text": "The charges against the U.S. had cited cases of peonage and labor under forced contracts in Maine, Connecticut, Texas, Arkansas, Georgia and California. They had revealed that thousands of “wetbacks” (i.e., Mexican laborers who wade the Rio Grande in search of work in the U.S.) lived in squalor and poverty, sometimes were paid as little as $8 a week.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1997, Saul Bellow, The Actual, New York: Viking, page 12:",
"text": "He went through a couple of bottles of wine and made a speech denouncing wetbacks and Asian immigrants.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, John Irving, chapter 2, in Avenue of Mysteries, Canada: Knopf:",
"text": "A successful wetback, the limo driver was thinking—that was his assessment of his Mexican-American passenger.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A Mexican or Central American who illegally enters the United States of America from its southern border."
],
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"Mexican",
"Mexican"
],
[
"illegal",
"illegal"
],
[
"United States of America",
"United States of America"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(derogatory slang) A Mexican or Central American who illegally enters the United States of America from its southern border."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "mojado"
}
],
"tags": [
"derogatory",
"slang"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English derogatory terms",
"English slang"
],
"glosses": [
"A person of the mestizo race; a mojado."
],
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"mestizo",
"mestizo"
],
[
"mojado",
"mojado"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(derogatory slang) A person of the mestizo race; a mojado."
],
"tags": [
"derogatory",
"slang"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"enpr": "wĕtbăk"
},
{
"ipa": "/wɛtbæk/"
},
{
"audio": "En-au-wetback.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f1/En-au-wetback.ogg/En-au-wetback.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/En-au-wetback.ogg"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Mexican or Central American who illegally enters the United States",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mojado"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Mexican or Central American who illegally enters the United States",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
"word": "espalda mojada"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"1920",
"Operation Wetback",
"Rio Grande",
"wetback (slur)"
],
"word": "wetback"
}
Download raw JSONL data for wetback meaning in English (3.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.