Questions tagged [meaning-in-context]
This tag is for questions about the meaning of a longer passage of English. A SPECIFIC CONCERN must be emphasized.
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What does a single letter "J" mean in emailing? [closed]
Today is Halloween. After a successful party, many conversations have been going on in my company's email box.
The end of one email said "Till next time J". I had no idea what "J" meant in this ...
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What is "ass door"?
I'm not English speaking, I understand the joke but say please what is "ass door"? Is it the same as butt door? Didn't find it in the dictionary.
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When does thousand turn into thousands?
My boyfriend and I are arguing whether thousands of miles means 1000+ or 2000+ miles.
The first argument is that 1000+ is over 1000 and therefore 'thousands of miles' by rounding up.
The other ...
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"All but" idiom has two meanings?
Here's two ways I've seen the "all, but" idiom used:
"Close all tabs but this one" (Any modern application with a number of tabs might have this as an option.) It means "close all the tabs, but not ...
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"The Dude abides" — what does "abide" mean in that context?
I'm unfamilar with the word "abide" which is famously used the the movie quote "The Dude abides" (The Big Lebowski).
Looking it up in a German/English dictionary makes me believe it's "The Dude lives ...
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What's the difference between the adjectives "strategic" and "tactical"?
I recently read this sentence:
It was a strategic move rather than a tactical one.
I have trouble interpreting it. Can someone help?
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What does “Your hair is so white now, it can talk back to police” mean?
Vanity Fair magazine (April 27) introduced a barrel of jokes about political figures Cecily Strong delivered at Best White House Correspondents’ Dinner held on April 25th in Washington under the ...
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What did "pop a cap" mean, other than "shoot someone," in the 19th century?
Popping a cap
Green's Dictionary of Slang defines "pop a cap" as:
to fire a weapon; to shoot someone.
In recent uses, the slang meaning is clear, and often extended to "pop a cap (in somebody's ...
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"What would you with the king?" -From the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"
In the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, in order to show how punctuation changes meaning and can be used for jokes, it says:
Instead of “What would you with the king?” you can have someone say in ...
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What does "you will want to" mean?
I often find people (mostly American people) telling to me "you will want to do this" or "you will not want to do this". Does it mean they are telling me that I should do something (in the sense of ...
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"X times as many as" or "X times more than"
Suppose John has 5 sweets. Is there any difference between the following two sentences?
Jack has 3 times as many sweets as John.
Jack has 3 times more sweets than John.
I prefer the first ...
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What does "went through the guards of the broadsword" mean?
It was upon the evening of this memorable Sunday that Sir Everard entered the library, where he narrowly missed surprising our young hero as he went through the guards of the broadsword with the ...
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Why is there confusion between depreciated and deprecated?
For at least a year and half, I read "deprecated" as "depreciated", even when writing it down myself, I would spell it as "depreciated", even though pretty much every time I read it, it was spelt ...
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What does “Barack Obama’s real crime is presiding while black” mean?
I thought it’s unusual for me to be able to come to the end of Maureen Dowd’s’ article without any second thoughts on her particular turn of phrases when I’ve read today’s NYT article titled “Reindeer ...
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Is it "peek", "peak" or "pique"?
I have always thought the phrase was "pique my interest" as in:
Her mysterious background piqued my interest.
However, of late, on blogs and social networks, I have seen people using "peek my ...
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I can understand 'Disaster Preparedness' but what is 'Pediatric Terrorism?'
I was googling for something else related to ELU and came across the page heading Pediatric Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness which according to the introduction is a
new comprehensive report (.....
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What does the term "a free concert in the mud" mean in this sentence?
I came across the following sentence in a The Atlantic article:
Even when a seismic event—a war, a technological leap, a free concert in the mud—plays an outsize role in shaping a group of young ...
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What does "vanilla" mean in the context of gaming?
Consider this comment:
I've been playing WoW(an online multiplayer game) since vanilla. I'm an older white male, my first toon was female, created with my wife coaching me. We did it just for fun.
...
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Meaning of "He's got more bottle than a milkman"
I was watching a game of snooker the other day and heard one of the commentators say "This player has got more bottle than a milkman" after a particularly good shot. What does this mean and how could ...
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Does "notified by [date]" include the end date?
I have read the Rules of a competition. The text of the Rules include a sentence as follows:
As per stated in the Rules the entrants will be notified by May 30th 2010.
Does the sentence above mean ...
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What does “Pitchforks change hands” and “Pitchforks have their uses” mean?
The New Yorker’s (March 6 issue) article that came under the title, “Trumpcare vs. Obamacare” begins with the following paragraph;
The pitchforks are changing hands. In 2009, it was Democratic ...
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What is meant by "pun intended"?
I am not a native speaker of English. I came across many articles which used the phrase "pun intended". In many cases I am not able to grasp the meaning of the sentence as what this phrase mean in the ...
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"Best Before" says "11 MA 23"; is it May or March?
I bought a bottle of juice today, and the "Best Before" date it's "11 MA 23". I always see "MA" as for March, but the store staff said that was May.
What is your opinion?
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Who is “That Guy”?
I found the term “that guy”, used as “He embarked on a career as a 'that guy',” in the following sentence of the article of the New Yorker (Feb. 7, 2011) titled “the Most Interesting Man in the World”:...
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Does "pass" mean OK or not OK? [closed]
Today, I received a folder of Recruiting candidate CVs from one of our HR. In this folder, there is a sub-folder named "pass". Question is does this "pass" mean the CVs inside are ...
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What does “There she blows’” mean?
This question regards the sentence in the New Yorker’s (June 14) article “Lunch at Gitlitze” I quoted in my previous question, "“Battled-hardened,” Is this one of New Yorker's renowned ...
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What is the meaning of "don't mention it" (in response to "thank you")?
I read at several places that "don't mention it" is equal to "you're welcome". But for me, the word means something like "don't go around talking about this to anyone". So what is the real meaning of ...
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What does President Obama’s phrase “We don’t need to spike the football” mean?
President Obama made the following statement regarding his decision not to show dead body of Osama bin Laden to the public:
"I think that Americans and people around the world are glad that he is ...
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Meaning and usage of "bite me"
I often come across the phrase bite me in many TV shows. What does it mean and is there a specific context in which this phrase can be used?
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What were—or are—"odd pants?"
From the mid 19th century to about the mid 20th century, there were a lot of advertisements in newspapers and magazines for something called odd pants. Judging from context, I suspect they were not ...
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What is the difference between "daemon" and "demon" in a religious context?
Is there a difference between demon and daemon in a religious context?
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What does "five-ten one-twenty" mean?
I'm watching a stand up of Janeane Garofalo. She is saying she hates high fashion and models and then she says:
You know, and when there are statistics, you know. Five-ten,
one-twenty, fuck you. ...
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"We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"
It is from the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles.
I have a hard time interpreting the meaning of device in this context.
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What does “10-4 ” mean?
I could have asked this question personally to my respected colleague who gave me a valuable answer to the question, “Is the ‘tame the infinite becoming an idiom or a popular phrase,” which I posted ...
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"I am on it" vs. "I am at it"
What are the differences between I am on it and I am at it? What does the latter mean? I found the definition of the former on Urban Dictionary and understand that it means I'm going to solve it ...
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How should "deceptively" actually be used?
I'm not sure if this is a duplicate question, but I couldn't find anything on here on the topic. I can't seem to figure out what is actually meant when using the word "deceptive," or rather, what is ...
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"Pissed" vs "Pissed off"
In Australian English there has always been a distinction between "pissed" (intoxicated) and "pissed off" (angry, irritated).
I've noticed a trend towards the American usage where "he was really ...
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What is the word for reserving something for yourself before others do? [duplicate]
In English-speaking TV shows, characters sometimes say something similar to dips to say to other people they are taking something for themselves before others do.
Neither Google, Wiktionary or Urban ...
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What does the term "hot dog lawyer" mean?
What does the term "hot dog lawyer" mean? I've heard this term quite a few times, and I am not sure what does the term "hot dog" as an adjective describe?
For example:
“And they usually don't ...
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Is "up to" inclusive or exclusive?
The study was carried out up to visit 11 under the name of X1,
whereas all later visits were carried out under a different name,
X2.
In the above sentence, does V11 belong to X1 or X2? I want the ...
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Difference between "I am really sorry" and "I really am sorry"
I know they are slightly different, but I can't tell how.
I've read about the usage of the word "really" in a negative sentence. But it didn't tell me about how the position of the word "really" can ...
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What does "better angel" mean in Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address?
I'm reading the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It mentioned that Lincoln replaced the phase "guardian angel" to "better angel". I don't understand what the phrase means. ...
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A martini before and a cigarette after [closed]
I read a quote from an unnamed source:
I asked my friend, "what are your three favorite pleasures in life?" and she replied, "A martini before and a cigarette after."
As far as I can tell, a ...
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Does “gay” still include the meaning “merry”?
Dictionary.com lists eight meanings
of gay, with “merry, lively” as
the first entry.
Microsoft banned an
Xbox user for listing Fort
Gay (a real place) as his
hometown:
Xbox Live considered the term ...
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Why is there a "mean" in "Greenwich Mean Time" (GMT)?
What's the meaning of the word "mean" in "Greenwich Mean Time"?
Shouldn't we simply say something like "Greenwich Time"? I don't understand what the word "mean" is doing there.
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What does President Obama's “pro-knowledge” remark mean?
Today’s (May 17) New Yorker carries an article written by Andy Borowitz under the title, “Obama alienates millions with
incendiary pro-knowledge remarks," which begins with the following passage:
“...
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When is "between" inclusive and when exclusive?
It seems that the exact meaning of between is very tied to its specific usage. What should I assume in a general situation about the inclusivity of between? Consider:
"Pick a number between 1 and 10."...
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What are "city sevens"?
In the novel "The Clock That Went Backward", in chapter II, there is this sentence:
Aunt Gertrude's will left me her bank and gas stocks, real estate, railroad bonds, and city sevens, and gave ...
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Meaning of "couple o' pins" in this poem by Tolkien
Here's part of a poem from Tolkien:
'For a couple o' pins,' says Troll, and grins,
'I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee ...
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What does “get rolled” in “Eight ways Trump got rolled in his first budget negotiation” mean?
The Washington Post (May 1st) runs an article under the headline, “Eight ways Trump got rolled in his first budget negotiation,” which is followed by the following paragraph:
“Democrats are surprised ...
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