"what for" meaning in All languages combined

See what for on Wiktionary

Phrase [English]

Forms: what for
Head templates: {{expression}} [POS TABLE]
  1. You ask what for to find out the purpose of something. Synonyms: why
    Sense id: simple-what_for-en-phrase-a1yH9mfB
     
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "what for",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Expression"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "expression"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "\"Give me your phone.\" \"What for?\""
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "You ask what for to find out the purpose of something."
      ],
      "id": "simple-what_for-en-phrase-a1yH9mfB",
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "why"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "what for"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "what for",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Expression"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "expression"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "\"Give me your phone.\" \"What for?\""
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "You ask what for to find out the purpose of something."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "why"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "what for"
}

Download raw JSONL data for what for meaning in All languages combined (0.4kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-10 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (df33d17 and 4ed51a5). 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.