"what was someone smoking" meaning in English

See what was someone smoking in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: En-au-what was someone smoking.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: Suggesting the smoking of mind-altering drugs. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} what was someone smoking
  1. (idiomatic, humorous) Used to express surprise about someone's uncharacteristic or wacky, offbeat past actions. Tags: humorous, idiomatic Categories (topical): English rhetorical questions Related terms: what was someone thinking

Download JSON data for what was someone smoking meaning in English (3.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Suggesting the smoking of mind-altering drugs.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "what was someone smoking",
      "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": "topical",
          "name": "English rhetorical questions",
          "parents": [
            "Rhetorical questions",
            "Idioms",
            "Questions",
            "Sentences",
            "Figures of speech",
            "Terms by semantic function",
            "Rhetoric",
            "Language",
            "Communication",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "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": "1996, Mark Lawrence, A to Z of sports cars, 1945-1990, page 1943",
          "text": "The SGZ is primarily a signal that Alfa Romeo is back in business as serious maker of serious cars although the Zagato body puts one in mind of the FI team owner whose response to a new car was to ask his designer 'What were you smoking when you designed that?'",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Gemäse Simmons, Worth Fighting For!: The Tragedies & Triumphs of Professor Renee ..., page 25",
          "text": "“...We don't want to live there. It's dark, creepy and it stank. What were you smoking when you bought this place? Hope you bought it real cheap, where is your change at?”\n“Shut the hell up”, James snapped back. “I'm your daddy and you going to live where I move you”.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Lee A. Iacocca, Catherine Whitney, Where have all the leaders gone?, page 82",
          "text": "Bush and company had a fantasy that we could bring democracy to Iraq and it would cause a domino effect in the Middle East. Suddenly every Arab nation would embrace democracy. What were they smoking?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to express surprise about someone's uncharacteristic or wacky, offbeat past actions."
      ],
      "id": "en-what_was_someone_smoking-en-phrase-GN30P9De",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "surprise",
          "surprise#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, humorous) Used to express surprise about someone's uncharacteristic or wacky, offbeat past actions."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "what was someone thinking"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-what was someone smoking.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d1/En-au-what_was_someone_smoking.ogg/En-au-what_was_someone_smoking.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/En-au-what_was_someone_smoking.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "what was someone smoking"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Suggesting the smoking of mind-altering drugs.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "what was someone smoking",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "what was someone thinking"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English rhetorical questions",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1996, Mark Lawrence, A to Z of sports cars, 1945-1990, page 1943",
          "text": "The SGZ is primarily a signal that Alfa Romeo is back in business as serious maker of serious cars although the Zagato body puts one in mind of the FI team owner whose response to a new car was to ask his designer 'What were you smoking when you designed that?'",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Gemäse Simmons, Worth Fighting For!: The Tragedies & Triumphs of Professor Renee ..., page 25",
          "text": "“...We don't want to live there. It's dark, creepy and it stank. What were you smoking when you bought this place? Hope you bought it real cheap, where is your change at?”\n“Shut the hell up”, James snapped back. “I'm your daddy and you going to live where I move you”.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Lee A. Iacocca, Catherine Whitney, Where have all the leaders gone?, page 82",
          "text": "Bush and company had a fantasy that we could bring democracy to Iraq and it would cause a domino effect in the Middle East. Suddenly every Arab nation would embrace democracy. What were they smoking?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to express surprise about someone's uncharacteristic or wacky, offbeat past actions."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "surprise",
          "surprise#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, humorous) Used to express surprise about someone's uncharacteristic or wacky, offbeat past actions."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-what was someone smoking.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d1/En-au-what_was_someone_smoking.ogg/En-au-what_was_someone_smoking.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/En-au-what_was_someone_smoking.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "what was someone smoking"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.