"who cares" meaning in English

See who cares in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: En-au-who cares.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|phrase|head=who cares?}} who cares?
  1. (colloquial, rhetorical question) A reply to an unimportant or irrelevant statement, indicating indifference on the part of the speaker. Tags: colloquial, rhetoric Categories (topical): English rhetorical questions
    Sense id: en-who_cares-en-phrase-HHCb7G4l Categories (other): English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English phrasebook, English sentences, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 50 50 Disambiguation of English phrasebook: 47 53 Disambiguation of English sentences: 45 55 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 50 50
  2. (colloquial, rhetorical question) A reply that dismisses the importance of another speaker's immediately preceding statement. Tags: colloquial, rhetoric Categories (topical): English rhetorical questions
    Sense id: en-who_cares-en-phrase-OOJP23Rf Categories (other): English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English phrasebook, English responses, English sentences, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 50 50 Disambiguation of English phrasebook: 47 53 Disambiguation of English responses: 44 56 Disambiguation of English sentences: 45 55 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 50 50
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: so what, whatever, who gives, who gives a damn, who gives a fuck, who gives a shit, whoopdee doo, whoopee do Related terms: give a damn, give a fuck, give a hoot, give a shit, zero fucks given Coordinate_terms: I don't care (english: broadly synonymous)

Download JSON data for who cares meaning in English (6.9kB)

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "care § Antonyms"
    }
  ],
  "coordinate_terms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "english": "broadly synonymous",
      "word": "I don't care"
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "who cares?"
      },
      "expansion": "who cares?",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "give a damn"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "give a fuck"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "give a hoot"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "give a shit"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "zero fucks given"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasebook",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "45 55",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English sentences",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A reply to an unimportant or irrelevant statement, indicating indifference on the part of the speaker."
      ],
      "id": "en-who_cares-en-phrase-HHCb7G4l",
      "links": [
        [
          "unimportant",
          "unimportant#English"
        ],
        [
          "irrelevant",
          "irrelevant#English"
        ],
        [
          "indifference",
          "indifference#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, rhetorical question) A reply to an unimportant or irrelevant statement, indicating indifference on the part of the speaker."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "rhetoric"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "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"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "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+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasebook",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "44 56",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English responses",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "45 55",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English sentences",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1876, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Part 4",
          "text": "\"I'll never speak to you again as long as I live,\" said Joe, rising. \"There now!\" And he moved moodily away and began to dress himself.\n\"Who cares!\" said Tom. \"Nobody wants you to. Go 'long home and get laughed at. Oh, you're a nice pirate. Huck and me ain't crybabies. We'll stay, won't we, Huck? Let him go if he wants to. I reckon we can get along without him, per'aps.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1884 July, author not named, “A Little Too Clever”, in Little Folks: A Magazine for the Young",
          "text": "\"But it's ever so much longer, and we're so late,\" grumbled Duncan.\n\"Who cares?\" cried Elsie, stolidly. \"I'm a girl and I'm not going to climb up the hill in this heat.\"\nDuncan stared again. He had never heard Elsie complain of the hill before. Usually they scampered up it, and rolled down the steepest side—not, truly, when there was milk to carry, but at other times. And now Elsie was walking along in a languid, mincing fashion, as if she had no more fun in her than Robbie himself, and had never scampered bare-foot over the moor six days out of every week, no matter what the weather might be.\n\"There's Robbie at the garden gate beckoning us. I expect mother's very angry,\" cried Duncan, despairingly.\n\"Who cares? let him beckon,\" Elsie replied, with the most provoking indifference. \"Run on by yourself if you're afraid.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "c.1888, George Manville Fenn, Dick o' the Fens: A Tale of the Great Eastern Swamp,\n\"No, but it's not nice all the same to live in a place where lots of people were murdered.\"\n\"Tchah! who cares! I don't. It's a capital old place, and you never dig anywhere without finding something.\"\n\"Yes,\" said Tom solemnly, \"something that isn't always nice.\""
        },
        {
          "ref": "1906, Frances H. Burnett, Racketty-Packetty House",
          "text": "\"Well,\" said Peter Piper, \"we have been called Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper instead of our grand names, and now we live in a place called Racketty-Packetty House. Who cares! Let's join hands and have a dance.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1922, Robert Benchley, Love Conquers All",
          "text": "It makes no difference if you fall on the whirl. Who cares? And when you are through dancing you can go out to the faucet and get yourself a drink—provided the water hasn't been turned off.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1944, Robert Sydney Bowen, Dave Dawson at Casablanca",
          "text": "Freddy Farmer added two one-dollar bills to the hockey tickets and walked away. The two soldiers gaped down at the two tickets and the two dollars.\n\"What's the matter with that guy; is he touched?\" one of them mumbled. \"And did you hear him, Fuzzy? He didn't even speak English!\"\n\"Who cares?\" Fuzzy asked as he came out of his trance. \"Two four-buck-forty hockey tickets, and two bucks in cash! Who cares if the guy is touched? He's okay by me!\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A reply that dismisses the importance of another speaker's immediately preceding statement."
      ],
      "id": "en-who_cares-en-phrase-OOJP23Rf",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, rhetorical question) A reply that dismisses the importance of another speaker's immediately preceding statement."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "rhetoric"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-who cares.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/eb/En-au-who_cares.ogg/En-au-who_cares.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/En-au-who_cares.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "so what"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "whatever"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "who gives"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "who gives a damn"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "who gives a fuck"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "who gives a shit"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "whoopdee doo"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "55 45",
      "word": "whoopee do"
    }
  ],
  "word": "who cares"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "care § Antonyms"
    }
  ],
  "categories": [
    "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrasebook",
    "English phrases",
    "English responses",
    "English sentences",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys"
  ],
  "coordinate_terms": [
    {
      "english": "broadly synonymous",
      "word": "I don't care"
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "who cares?"
      },
      "expansion": "who cares?",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "give a damn"
    },
    {
      "word": "give a fuck"
    },
    {
      "word": "give a hoot"
    },
    {
      "word": "give a shit"
    },
    {
      "word": "zero fucks given"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English rhetorical questions"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A reply to an unimportant or irrelevant statement, indicating indifference on the part of the speaker."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "unimportant",
          "unimportant#English"
        ],
        [
          "irrelevant",
          "irrelevant#English"
        ],
        [
          "indifference",
          "indifference#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, rhetorical question) A reply to an unimportant or irrelevant statement, indicating indifference on the part of the speaker."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "rhetoric"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English rhetorical questions",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1876, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Part 4",
          "text": "\"I'll never speak to you again as long as I live,\" said Joe, rising. \"There now!\" And he moved moodily away and began to dress himself.\n\"Who cares!\" said Tom. \"Nobody wants you to. Go 'long home and get laughed at. Oh, you're a nice pirate. Huck and me ain't crybabies. We'll stay, won't we, Huck? Let him go if he wants to. I reckon we can get along without him, per'aps.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1884 July, author not named, “A Little Too Clever”, in Little Folks: A Magazine for the Young",
          "text": "\"But it's ever so much longer, and we're so late,\" grumbled Duncan.\n\"Who cares?\" cried Elsie, stolidly. \"I'm a girl and I'm not going to climb up the hill in this heat.\"\nDuncan stared again. He had never heard Elsie complain of the hill before. Usually they scampered up it, and rolled down the steepest side—not, truly, when there was milk to carry, but at other times. And now Elsie was walking along in a languid, mincing fashion, as if she had no more fun in her than Robbie himself, and had never scampered bare-foot over the moor six days out of every week, no matter what the weather might be.\n\"There's Robbie at the garden gate beckoning us. I expect mother's very angry,\" cried Duncan, despairingly.\n\"Who cares? let him beckon,\" Elsie replied, with the most provoking indifference. \"Run on by yourself if you're afraid.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "c.1888, George Manville Fenn, Dick o' the Fens: A Tale of the Great Eastern Swamp,\n\"No, but it's not nice all the same to live in a place where lots of people were murdered.\"\n\"Tchah! who cares! I don't. It's a capital old place, and you never dig anywhere without finding something.\"\n\"Yes,\" said Tom solemnly, \"something that isn't always nice.\""
        },
        {
          "ref": "1906, Frances H. Burnett, Racketty-Packetty House",
          "text": "\"Well,\" said Peter Piper, \"we have been called Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper instead of our grand names, and now we live in a place called Racketty-Packetty House. Who cares! Let's join hands and have a dance.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1922, Robert Benchley, Love Conquers All",
          "text": "It makes no difference if you fall on the whirl. Who cares? And when you are through dancing you can go out to the faucet and get yourself a drink—provided the water hasn't been turned off.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1944, Robert Sydney Bowen, Dave Dawson at Casablanca",
          "text": "Freddy Farmer added two one-dollar bills to the hockey tickets and walked away. The two soldiers gaped down at the two tickets and the two dollars.\n\"What's the matter with that guy; is he touched?\" one of them mumbled. \"And did you hear him, Fuzzy? He didn't even speak English!\"\n\"Who cares?\" Fuzzy asked as he came out of his trance. \"Two four-buck-forty hockey tickets, and two bucks in cash! Who cares if the guy is touched? He's okay by me!\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A reply that dismisses the importance of another speaker's immediately preceding statement."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, rhetorical question) A reply that dismisses the importance of another speaker's immediately preceding statement."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "rhetoric"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-who cares.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/eb/En-au-who_cares.ogg/En-au-who_cares.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/En-au-who_cares.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "so what"
    },
    {
      "word": "whatever"
    },
    {
      "word": "who gives"
    },
    {
      "word": "who gives a damn"
    },
    {
      "word": "who gives a fuck"
    },
    {
      "word": "who gives a shit"
    },
    {
      "word": "whoopdee doo"
    },
    {
      "word": "whoopee do"
    }
  ],
  "word": "who cares"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-17 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-01 using wiktextract (0b52755 and 5cb0836). 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.