We had to ration our food because there was a war on.
Some of the cast went down with flu, but the show's still on.
That TV programme that you wanted to watch is on now.
This is her last song. You're on next!
Are we still on for tonight?
Mike just threw coffee onto Paul's lap. It's on now.
England need a hundred runs, with twenty-five overs remaining. Game on!
(informal)Of a person, used to express agreement to or acceptance of a proposal or challenge made by that person; most commonly with subject "you" (see you're on).
"Five bucks says the Cavs win tonight." ―"You're on!"
If he wants a fight, he's on!
Fitted; covering or being worn.
Your feet will soon warm up once your socks are on.
I was trying to drink out of the bottle while the top was still on!
(postpositive) Of a stated part of something, oriented towards the viewer or other specified direction.
(baseball,informal) Having reached a base as a runner and being positioned there, awaiting further action from a subsequent batter.
2019 February 24, Chris Kennedy, “Aggies Earn Series Win Over Yale in Sunday Finale”, in New Mexico State University Athletics:
With one out and no men on, Tristen Carranza belted a ball to the opposite field for a solo home run to put the NM State deficit at just 2-1.
2019 April 6, Daniel Martinez-Krams, “Baseball Falls Short in Game 2 of UCLA Series”, in The Stanford Daily:
Although Stanford was outhit 15-6, the Cardinal stranded eight runners to UCLA's three, hitting just 3-15 with runners on compared to the Bruin's 9-22.
2012 May 5, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport:
He met Luis Suarez's cross at the far post, only for Chelsea keeper Petr Cech to show brilliant reflexes to deflect his header on to the bar. Carroll turned away to lead Liverpool's insistent protests that the ball had crossed the line but referee Phil Dowd and assistant referee Andrew Garratt waved play on, with even a succession of replays proving inconclusive.
Because of; due to; upon the basis of (something not yet confirmed as true).
to arrest someone on suspicion of bribery
to contact someone on a hunch
(also often 'upon') At the time of (and often because of).
On Jack's entry, William got up to leave.
On the addition of ammonia, a chemical reaction begins.
(also often 'upon') Arrived or coming into the presence of.
I need to get my planting done, as the season will soon be on us.
Before we knew it, the forest was on us, and the air grew colder and damper.
Paid for by.
The drinks are on me tonight, boys.
The meal is on the house.
I paid for the airfare and meals for my family, but the hotel room was on the company.
Indicating a means or medium.
I saw it on television.
Can't you see I'm on the phone?
My favorite shows are on BBC America.
The Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show is on YouTube.
The film was released on DVD.
Indicating the target of, or thing affected by, an event or action.
They planned an attack on London.
The soldiers mutinied and turned their guns on their officers.
Her words made a lasting impression on my mind.
What will be the effect on morale?
Toward; for; indicating the object of an emotion.
Have pity or compassion on him.
(especiallyIreland)Indicating the person experiencing an emotion, cold, thirst, hunger, etc.
2013 February 27, Rosemary Sutcliff, The Shining Company, Random House, →ISBN:
'[…] the hunger is on me to carry my sword in distant places.' Mynyddog bowed his head.
2017 January 24, Ruth Gilligan, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan, Tin House Books, →ISBN:
“Christ, the thirst on me.” “Sure, it's serious work, all that talk of independence.” The theater's stained-glass doors had first flung open in 1904, all in the hope of “rewriting the Irish identity,” of using culture in the fight[…]
2017 August 29, Ralph Peters, Judgment at Appomattox: A Novel, Forge Books, →ISBN, page 18:
“I've got the hunger on me, I do.” Riordan snorted. Hardly a man knew hunger as he did. The prison rations at Point Lookout, spare enough, had been a feast compared to the black years in Ireland.[…]
Indicating the position that one has reached in a sequence.
I'm on question four.
Indicating a means of subsistence.
They lived on ten dollars a week.
The dog survived three weeks on rainwater.
Engaged in or occupied with (an action or activity).
(especially when numbers of combatants or competitors are specified) Against; in opposition to.
The fight was three on one, and he never stood a chance.
(philosophy,logic) According to, from the standpoint of; expressing what must follow, whether accepted or not, if a given premise or system is assumed true.
2021, Gavin Ortlund, Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't: The Beauty of Christian Theism, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, →ISBN:
On naturalism, it is therefore difficult to find a ground for ultimate moral hope.
(snooker) In a position of being able to pot (a given ball).
All the way around the table, off four cushions, and ... and he's on the black!
Italian: di(it)(used only with nouns of the week days: "di lunedì" - "on Monday", "di martedì" - "on Tuesday", ...; not always used), in(it)(used only with generic days, as in "in un giorno differente" - "on a different day"; not always used)
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Usually followed by a present participle, as being, having, etc.
Etymology 3
From Japanese音読み(on'yomi, literally “sound reading”).
Noun
on
In the Japanese language, a pronunciation, or reading, of a kanji character that was originally based on the character's pronunciation in Chinese, contrasted with kun.
Most kanji have two kinds of reading, called "on" and "kun".
Starostin, Sergei, Dybo, Anna, Mudrak, Oleg (2003) “*ōn”, in Etymological dictionary of the Altaic languages (Handbuch der Orientalistik; VIII.8), Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill
The native form in most dialects was Old High Germanindi, whence the variant en. In parts of the Eifel, this indi regularly becomes on (compare Luxembourgishan). In southern and eastern dialects, on the other hand, on may have been inherited from the Old High German variant unde (unti). From these two groups of dialects, the form will have spread, without doubt under influence of Germanund.
Inherited from Old Frenchhom, om (nominative form), from Latinhomō(“human being”) (compare homme from the Old French oblique form home, from the Latin accusative form hominem). Its pronominal use is of Germanic origin. Compare Old Englishman(“one, they, people”), reduced form of Old Englishmann(“person”); Catalanhom; Germanman(“one, they, people”); Dutchmen(“one, they, people”). In the second sense, meaning "we", also compare the development Malaykita orang(“we (incl.) + person”) and also dialectal kitorang, kitong, torang.
In informal and standard conversational French, on has almost completely replaced the pronoun nous(“we”) to indicate that a sentence or clause has a first-person plural as its subject. However, nous is still favored in formal writing and speech, and is still used colloquially as a disjunctive reinforcing nominative on, as well as to indicate direct and indirect objects. It may be used for reflexive objects, but as this is potentially ambiguous, these are also indicated with the reflexive pronoun se — especially with reinforcement from disjunctive nous, which clarifies that the speaker means "we" and not "one," i.e. a generalized indefinite subject. This clarification can also be achieved by the use of tous.
On est toujours là. ― We're still here.
Nous, on s’y fait. ― We get used to it.
On connait tous la chanson qu’elle chante. ― We all know which song she is singing.
Nous, on l’a tous vu. ― We all saw it.
The verb is always conjugated in the third-person singular, but if the pronoun refers to a first-person plural, the attribute agrees in gender and number.
On est venu ici. ― One came here.
On y est allés/ allées. ― We went there.
On est prêts/ prêtes. ― We are ready.
The variant l’on is used in more formal or literary contexts. Some use it especially after que (que l'on) to avoid the contraction qu’on, which is homophonous with the vulgar word con.
Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages, Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
B. Sieradzka-Baziur, Ewa Deptuchowa, Joanna Duska, Mariusz Frodyma, Beata Hejmo, Dorota Janeczko, Katarzyna Jasińska, Krystyna Kajtoch, Joanna Kozioł, Marian Kucała, Dorota Mika, Gabriela Niemiec, Urszula Poprawska, Elżbieta Supranowicz, Ludwika Szelachowska-Winiarzowa, Zofia Wanicowa, Piotr Szpor, Bartłomiej Borek, editors (2011–2015), “on”, in Słownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego[Conceptual Dictionary of Old Polish] (in Polish), Kraków:IJP PAN, →ISBN
According to Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990), on is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 1477 times in scientific texts, 677 times in news, 976 times in essays, 1957 times in fiction, and 1617 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 6650 times, making it the 8th most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.[1]
Ida Kurcz (1990) “on”, in Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej [Frequency dictionary of the Polish language] (in Polish), volume 1, Kraków, Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Języka Polskiego, page 333
Further reading
on in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
Maria Renata Mayenowa, Stanisław Rospond, Witold Taszycki, Stefan Hrabec, Władysław Kuraszkiewicz (2010-2023) “on”, in Słownik Polszczyzny XVI Wieku [A Dictionary of 16th Century Polish]
Maria Renata Mayenowa, Stanisław Rospond, Witold Taszycki, Stefan Hrabec, Władysław Kuraszkiewicz (2010-2023) “on”, in Słownik Polszczyzny XVI Wieku [A Dictionary of 16th Century Polish]
“ON I”, in Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century], 2021 November 3
“ON II”, in Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century], 2020 March 30
Boretzky, Norbert, Igla, Birgit (1994) “on”, in Wörterbuch Romani-Deutsch-Englisch für den südosteuropäischen Raum: mit einer Grammatik der Dialektvarianten [Romani-German-English dictionary for the Southern European region] (in German), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, →ISBN, page 201a
Marcel Courthiade (2009) “on B-ćham: len”, in Melinda Rézműves, editor, Morri angluni rromane ćhibǎqi evroputni lavustik = Első rromani nyelvű európai szótáram: cigány, magyar, angol, francia, spanyol, német, ukrán, román, horvát, szlovák, görög [My First European-Romani Dictionary: Romani, Hungarian, English, French, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Romanian, Croatian, Slovak, Greek] (overall work in Hungarian and English), Budapest: Fővárosi Onkormányzat Cigány Ház--Romano Kher, →ISBN, page 260b
Yaron Matras and Evangelina Adamou (2020) “Romani and Contact Linguistics”, in Yaron Matras, Anton Tenser, editors, The Palgrave Handbook of Romani Language and Linguistics, →DOI, →ISBN, page 341
“on”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2024
R. de Willett, Elizabeth, et al. (2016) Diccionario tepehuano de Santa María Ocotán, Durango (Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves”;48) (in Spanish), electronic edition, Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., page 140
1867, “THE WEDDEEN O BALLYMORE”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 1, page 94:
An a priesth o' parieshe on his lhaung-tyel garraane.
And the priest of the parish on his long tail pony.
1867, “THE WEDDEEN O BALLYMORE”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 2, page 94:
An a priesth o parieshe on his garrane baun,
The priest of the parish on his white pony,
1867, “CASTEALE CUDDE'S LAMENTATION”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 5, page 104:
Mizluck mye lhygt on Tam Busheare;
Bad luck may light on Tom Busheare;
1867, DR. RUSSELL ON THE INHABITANTS AND DIALECT OF THE BARONY OF FORTH, page 131:
Fad didn'st thou cum t' ouz on zum other dey?
[Why didn't you come to us on some other day?]
References
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 94
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