"what's not to like" meaning in English

See what's not to like in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Etymology: American origin, 1960s. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase|head=what's not to like?}} what's not to like?
  1. (informal, rhetorical question, sometimes sarcastic) Rhetorically implying that what is spoken of is undoubtedly good. Tags: informal, rhetoric, sarcastic, sometimes Categories (topical): English rhetorical questions Translations (Translations): mitä muuta voisi toivoa (Finnish), que demander de plus (French), que demander de mieux (French), que demande le peuple (French), was will man mehr (German)
    Sense id: en-what's_not_to_like-en-phrase-FGFo4lYP Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for what's not to like meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "American origin, 1960s.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "what's not to like?"
      },
      "expansion": "what's not to like?",
      "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": "topical",
          "name": "English rhetorical questions",
          "parents": [
            "Rhetorical questions",
            "Idioms",
            "Questions",
            "Sentences",
            "Figures of speech",
            "Multiword terms",
            "Terms by semantic function",
            "Rhetoric",
            "Lemmas",
            "Language",
            "Communication",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1964, William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (motion picture), spoken by Yogi Bear (Daws Butler)",
          "text": "What's not to like about Robin Hood? I'll steal from the rich and give to a poor bear: me.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Linda Woodbridge, “Country Matters: As You Like It and the Pastoral-Bashing Impulse”, in Harold Bloom, editor, William Shakespeare: Comedies, Infobase Publishing, page 23",
          "text": "[…]–one would think that this comedy offered satisfactions for gender theorists, feminists, queer theorists, Marxists, and ecocritics alike. What's not to like in As You Like It?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained (motion picture), spoken by Django (Jamie Foxx)",
          "text": "Kill white people and get paid for it? What's not to like?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Rhetorically implying that what is spoken of is undoubtedly good."
      ],
      "id": "en-what's_not_to_like-en-phrase-FGFo4lYP",
      "links": [
        [
          "sarcastic",
          "sarcastic"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, rhetorical question, sometimes sarcastic) Rhetorically implying that what is spoken of is undoubtedly good."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "rhetoric",
        "sarcastic",
        "sometimes"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "mitä muuta voisi toivoa"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "que demander de plus"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "que demander de mieux"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "que demande le peuple"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "was will man mehr"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "what's not to like"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "American origin, 1960s.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "what's not to like?"
      },
      "expansion": "what's not to like?",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English rhetorical questions",
        "English sarcastic terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1964, William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (motion picture), spoken by Yogi Bear (Daws Butler)",
          "text": "What's not to like about Robin Hood? I'll steal from the rich and give to a poor bear: me.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Linda Woodbridge, “Country Matters: As You Like It and the Pastoral-Bashing Impulse”, in Harold Bloom, editor, William Shakespeare: Comedies, Infobase Publishing, page 23",
          "text": "[…]–one would think that this comedy offered satisfactions for gender theorists, feminists, queer theorists, Marxists, and ecocritics alike. What's not to like in As You Like It?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained (motion picture), spoken by Django (Jamie Foxx)",
          "text": "Kill white people and get paid for it? What's not to like?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Rhetorically implying that what is spoken of is undoubtedly good."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sarcastic",
          "sarcastic"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, rhetorical question, sometimes sarcastic) Rhetorically implying that what is spoken of is undoubtedly good."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "rhetoric",
        "sarcastic",
        "sometimes"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "mitä muuta voisi toivoa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "que demander de plus"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "que demander de mieux"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "que demande le peuple"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "was will man mehr"
    }
  ],
  "word": "what's not to like"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (1d5a7d1 and 304864d). 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.