"à quoi bon" meaning in French

See à quoi bon in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

IPA: /a kwa bɔ̃/ Audio: LL-Q150 (fra)-LoquaxFR-à quoi bon.wav
  1. (informal) what good is it? what's the good of? what's the point? Tags: informal Derived forms: àquoibonisme, àquoiboniste
    Sense id: en-à_quoi_bon-fr-intj-f2SwpM1N Categories (other): French entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for à quoi bon meaning in French (1.8kB)

{
  "lang": "French",
  "lang_code": "fr",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "French entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "àquoibonisme"
        },
        {
          "word": "àquoiboniste"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "english": "What good is it to hold back if you want to get out of your own way, shout out your love, sublimate it in words and deeds: that moment when everything seems beautiful, where all ideological and religious \"interference\" drowns in the waves of deep, passionate feeling.",
          "ref": "2022 February 14, “Saint Valentin : La métaphore magique de notre ouverture”, in Le Soleil",
          "text": "A quoi bon se retenir si on a envie de se désopiler, de crier son amour, de le sublimer par le verbe et par le geste, cet instant-là où tout paraît beau où toutes les « interférences » idéologiques et religieuses se noient dans les flots de sentiments passionnels et profonds.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "what good is it? what's the good of? what's the point?"
      ],
      "id": "en-à_quoi_bon-fr-intj-f2SwpM1N",
      "links": [
        [
          "what good is",
          "what good is"
        ],
        [
          "what's the good of",
          "what's the good of"
        ],
        [
          "what's the point",
          "what's the point"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) what good is it? what's the good of? what's the point?"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/a kwa bɔ̃/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q150 (fra)-LoquaxFR-à quoi bon.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/08/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-%C3%A0_quoi_bon.wav/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-%C3%A0_quoi_bon.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/08/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-%C3%A0_quoi_bon.wav/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-%C3%A0_quoi_bon.wav.ogg",
      "text": "Audio"
    }
  ],
  "word": "à quoi bon"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "àquoibonisme"
    },
    {
      "word": "àquoiboniste"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "French",
  "lang_code": "fr",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "French entries with incorrect language header",
        "French informal terms",
        "French interjections",
        "French lemmas",
        "French multiword terms",
        "French terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "French terms with audio links",
        "French terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "english": "What good is it to hold back if you want to get out of your own way, shout out your love, sublimate it in words and deeds: that moment when everything seems beautiful, where all ideological and religious \"interference\" drowns in the waves of deep, passionate feeling.",
          "ref": "2022 February 14, “Saint Valentin : La métaphore magique de notre ouverture”, in Le Soleil",
          "text": "A quoi bon se retenir si on a envie de se désopiler, de crier son amour, de le sublimer par le verbe et par le geste, cet instant-là où tout paraît beau où toutes les « interférences » idéologiques et religieuses se noient dans les flots de sentiments passionnels et profonds.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "what good is it? what's the good of? what's the point?"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "what good is",
          "what good is"
        ],
        [
          "what's the good of",
          "what's the good of"
        ],
        [
          "what's the point",
          "what's the point"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) what good is it? what's the good of? what's the point?"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/a kwa bɔ̃/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q150 (fra)-LoquaxFR-à quoi bon.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/08/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-%C3%A0_quoi_bon.wav/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-%C3%A0_quoi_bon.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/08/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-%C3%A0_quoi_bon.wav/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-%C3%A0_quoi_bon.wav.ogg",
      "text": "Audio"
    }
  ],
  "word": "à quoi bon"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable French dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.