"måla fan på väggen" meaning in Swedish

See måla fan på väggen in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Etymology: Literally, "paint the Devil on the wall". Head templates: {{head|sv|phrase}} måla fan på väggen
  1. to assume the worst is going to happen Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-måla_fan_på_väggen-sv-phrase-7WA84ON7 Categories (other): Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Swedish entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 55 45 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 52 48 Disambiguation of Swedish entries with incorrect language header: 53 47
  2. to present a situation as being worse than it actually is Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-måla_fan_på_väggen-sv-phrase-~Jcvq9y9 Categories (other): Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Swedish entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 55 45 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 52 48 Disambiguation of Swedish entries with incorrect language header: 53 47
{
  "etymology_text": "Literally, \"paint the Devil on the wall\".",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "sv",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "måla fan på väggen",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "Swedish",
  "lang_code": "sv",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "55 45",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "52 48",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "53 47",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Swedish entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "A to B: \"I am going to forget what to say and everyone is going to laugh at me.\""
        },
        {
          "text": "B to A: \"Do not paint the devil on the wall.\""
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to assume the worst is going to happen"
      ],
      "id": "en-måla_fan_på_väggen-sv-phrase-7WA84ON7",
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "55 45",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "52 48",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "53 47",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Swedish entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              4,
              10
            ],
            [
              21,
              34
            ]
          ],
          "english": "She really went too far when she called her fellow party member a fascist.",
          "text": "Hon målade verkligen fan på väggen när hon kallade sin partikamrat fascist.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to present a situation as being worse than it actually is"
      ],
      "id": "en-måla_fan_på_väggen-sv-phrase-~Jcvq9y9",
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "måla fan på väggen"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Swedish entries with incorrect language header",
    "Swedish idioms",
    "Swedish lemmas",
    "Swedish multiword terms",
    "Swedish phrases"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Literally, \"paint the Devil on the wall\".",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "sv",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "måla fan på väggen",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "Swedish",
  "lang_code": "sv",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "A to B: \"I am going to forget what to say and everyone is going to laugh at me.\""
        },
        {
          "text": "B to A: \"Do not paint the devil on the wall.\""
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to assume the worst is going to happen"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "Swedish terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              4,
              10
            ],
            [
              21,
              34
            ]
          ],
          "english": "She really went too far when she called her fellow party member a fascist.",
          "text": "Hon målade verkligen fan på väggen när hon kallade sin partikamrat fascist.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to present a situation as being worse than it actually is"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "måla fan på väggen"
}

Download raw JSONL data for måla fan på väggen meaning in Swedish (1.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable Swedish dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-07 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (92124b4 and f1c2b61). 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.