"why in God's name" meaning in English

See why in God's name in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

Audio: En-au-why in God's name.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|interjection|head=why in God's name?}} why in God's name?
  1. (idiomatic) used to add emphasis to "why" when beginning question. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: why the dickens, why on Earth, why the Devil
    Sense id: en-why_in_God's_name-en-intj-cOlBV1st Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for why in God's name meaning in English (1.2kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "interjection",
        "head": "why in God's name?"
      },
      "expansion": "why in God's name?",
      "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"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Why in God's name have you got my pizza?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "used to add emphasis to \"why\" when beginning question."
      ],
      "id": "en-why_in_God's_name-en-intj-cOlBV1st",
      "links": [
        [
          "why",
          "why"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) used to add emphasis to \"why\" when beginning question."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "why the dickens"
        },
        {
          "word": "why on Earth"
        },
        {
          "word": "why the Devil"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-why in God's name.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7a/En-au-why_in_God%27s_name.ogg/En-au-why_in_God%27s_name.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/En-au-why_in_God%27s_name.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "why in God's name"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "interjection",
        "head": "why in God's name?"
      },
      "expansion": "why in God's name?",
      "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",
        "English terms with audio links"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Why in God's name have you got my pizza?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "used to add emphasis to \"why\" when beginning question."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "why",
          "why"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) used to add emphasis to \"why\" when beginning question."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-why in God's name.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7a/En-au-why_in_God%27s_name.ogg/En-au-why_in_God%27s_name.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/En-au-why_in_God%27s_name.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "why the dickens"
    },
    {
      "word": "why on Earth"
    },
    {
      "word": "why the Devil"
    }
  ],
  "word": "why in God's name"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 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.