what in tarnation in English

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{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "interjection",
        "head": "what in tarnation?"
      },
      "expansion": "what in tarnation?",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "2003. Judith Silverstein, Michael Lasky, \"Online dating for dummies\"\nWhat in Tarnation to Write I still remember the first girl I called up for a date at age 15."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005. Charles Harrington Elster, \"What in the word?\", Page 35",
          "text": "Other euphemisms of this type (and there are many) include what in tarnation for what in damnation and what the Sam Hill for what the damn hell."
        },
        {
          "text": "2007. Diane Stanley. \"The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy\" Page 141.\n“What in tarnation do you think you're doing?”"
        },
        {
          "text": "What in tarnation have you done with my wallet!?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to add emphasis to \"what\" when beginning a question."
      ],
      "id": "en-what_in_tarnation-en-intj-OcL4enp3",
      "links": [
        [
          "what",
          "what"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Used to add emphasis to \"what\" when beginning a question."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "what the dickens"
        },
        {
          "word": "what on Earth"
        },
        {
          "word": "what the Devil"
        },
        {
          "word": "what the fuck"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-what in tarnation.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0d/En-au-what_in_tarnation.ogg/En-au-what_in_tarnation.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/En-au-what_in_tarnation.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "what in tarnation"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "interjection",
        "head": "what in tarnation?"
      },
      "expansion": "what in tarnation?",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English interjections",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "2003. Judith Silverstein, Michael Lasky, \"Online dating for dummies\"\nWhat in Tarnation to Write I still remember the first girl I called up for a date at age 15."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005. Charles Harrington Elster, \"What in the word?\", Page 35",
          "text": "Other euphemisms of this type (and there are many) include what in tarnation for what in damnation and what the Sam Hill for what the damn hell."
        },
        {
          "text": "2007. Diane Stanley. \"The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy\" Page 141.\n“What in tarnation do you think you're doing?”"
        },
        {
          "text": "What in tarnation have you done with my wallet!?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to add emphasis to \"what\" when beginning a question."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "what",
          "what"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Used to add emphasis to \"what\" when beginning a question."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-what in tarnation.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0d/En-au-what_in_tarnation.ogg/En-au-what_in_tarnation.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/En-au-what_in_tarnation.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "what the dickens"
    },
    {
      "word": "what on Earth"
    },
    {
      "word": "what the Devil"
    },
    {
      "word": "what the fuck"
    }
  ],
  "word": "what in tarnation"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (4ba5975 and 4ed51a5). 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.

"what in tarnation" meaning in English

Interjection