"once in a blue moon" meaning in English

See once in a blue moon in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

IPA: /wʌns ɪn ə bluː muːn/ Audio: en-au-once in a blue moon.ogg [Australia] Forms: once in a blue moon
Head templates: {{expression}} [POS TABLE]
  1. Something that happens once in a blue moon, is something that rarely happens.
    Sense id: simple-once_in_a_blue_moon-en-phrase-DW~vGSvq Categories (other): Idioms
  2. Something that never happens.
    Sense id: simple-once_in_a_blue_moon-en-phrase-oJrVtmSX Categories (other): Old words
     
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "once in a blue moon",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Expression"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "expression"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Idioms",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Once in a blue moon, the teacher won't give us homework."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that happens once in a blue moon, is something that rarely happens."
      ],
      "id": "simple-once_in_a_blue_moon-en-phrase-DW~vGSvq",
      "raw_tags": [
        "idiom"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Old words",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that never happens."
      ],
      "id": "simple-once_in_a_blue_moon-en-phrase-oJrVtmSX",
      "raw_tags": [
        "old, no longer used"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/wʌns ɪn ə bluː muːn/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-once in a blue moon.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "once in a blue moon"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "once in a blue moon",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Expression"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "expression"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Idioms"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Once in a blue moon, the teacher won't give us homework."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that happens once in a blue moon, is something that rarely happens."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "idiom"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "Old words"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something that never happens."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "old, no longer used"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/wʌns ɪn ə bluː muːn/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-once in a blue moon.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "once in a blue moon"
}

Download raw JSONL data for once in a blue moon meaning in English (0.7kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-03 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (94ba7e1 and 5dea2a6). 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.