"why oh why" meaning in English

See why oh why in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Rhymes: -aɪ Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} why oh why
  1. A strengthened form of why, as used in questions.
    Sense id: en-why_oh_why-en-phrase-0Vnu5UNL
  2. (UK, sometimes used attributively) A statement of exasperation associated with reactionary viewpoints. Tags: UK, attributive, sometimes
    Sense id: en-why_oh_why-en-phrase-SmKMToGz Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header, English reduplicated coordinated pairs, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 43 57 Disambiguation of English reduplicated coordinated pairs: 33 67 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 43 57 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 40 60
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "why oh why",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A strengthened form of why, as used in questions."
      ],
      "id": "en-why_oh_why-en-phrase-0Vnu5UNL",
      "links": [
        [
          "why",
          "why#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "43 57",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "33 67",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English reduplicated coordinated pairs",
          "parents": [
            "Reduplicated coordinated pairs",
            "Coordinated pairs",
            "Reduplications",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "43 57",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "40 60",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1993, New Statesman Society:",
          "text": "Are these terrible figures greeted by hysterical \"why-oh-why?\" letters to the Times demanding a huge shift in resources from road-building to rail-modernisation?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Fred Sedgwick, How to Teach with a Hangover: A Practical Guide to Overcoming Classroom Crises, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 94:",
          "text": "Indeed, a right-wing paper is hardly ready for press without a why-oh-why article on children's failures to identify verbs and nouns.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Ben Summerskill, The Way We Are Now: Gay and Lesbian Lives in the 21st Century, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 7:",
          "text": "To mark the introduction of civil partnership in Britain, the Daily Telegraph duly featured a bitter polemic from 'Why-oh-Why' columnist Ferdinand Mount.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Andrew Marr, My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism, Pan Macmillan, →ISBN, page 27:",
          "text": "David Starkey and John Casey, a donnish don from Cambridge who cranks out 'why, oh why?' hand-wringing pieces for the Daily Mail, are modern equivalents.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Deborah Moggach, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Random House, →ISBN, page 3:",
          "text": "... the British health system, once the best in the world, was disintegrating in a welter of underfunding, staff shortages and collapsing morale. A hand-wringing why-oh-why piece appeared in the Daily Mail, an internal investigation was ordered.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A statement of exasperation associated with reactionary viewpoints."
      ],
      "id": "en-why_oh_why-en-phrase-SmKMToGz",
      "links": [
        [
          "reactionary",
          "reactionary#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, sometimes used attributively) A statement of exasperation associated with reactionary viewpoints."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "attributive",
        "sometimes"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "rhymes": "-aɪ"
    }
  ],
  "word": "why oh why"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrases",
    "English reduplicated coordinated pairs",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Rhymes:English/aɪ",
    "Rhymes:English/aɪ/3 syllables"
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "why oh why",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A strengthened form of why, as used in questions."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "why",
          "why#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1993, New Statesman Society:",
          "text": "Are these terrible figures greeted by hysterical \"why-oh-why?\" letters to the Times demanding a huge shift in resources from road-building to rail-modernisation?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Fred Sedgwick, How to Teach with a Hangover: A Practical Guide to Overcoming Classroom Crises, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 94:",
          "text": "Indeed, a right-wing paper is hardly ready for press without a why-oh-why article on children's failures to identify verbs and nouns.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Ben Summerskill, The Way We Are Now: Gay and Lesbian Lives in the 21st Century, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 7:",
          "text": "To mark the introduction of civil partnership in Britain, the Daily Telegraph duly featured a bitter polemic from 'Why-oh-Why' columnist Ferdinand Mount.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Andrew Marr, My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism, Pan Macmillan, →ISBN, page 27:",
          "text": "David Starkey and John Casey, a donnish don from Cambridge who cranks out 'why, oh why?' hand-wringing pieces for the Daily Mail, are modern equivalents.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Deborah Moggach, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Random House, →ISBN, page 3:",
          "text": "... the British health system, once the best in the world, was disintegrating in a welter of underfunding, staff shortages and collapsing morale. A hand-wringing why-oh-why piece appeared in the Daily Mail, an internal investigation was ordered.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A statement of exasperation associated with reactionary viewpoints."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "reactionary",
          "reactionary#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, sometimes used attributively) A statement of exasperation associated with reactionary viewpoints."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "attributive",
        "sometimes"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "rhymes": "-aɪ"
    }
  ],
  "word": "why oh why"
}

Download raw JSONL data for why oh why meaning in English (2.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.