betty

See also: Betty and Bettý

English

Alternative forms

(bar used by thieves to open doors): bettee
(attractive woman): Betty

Etymology

From Betty (“nickname for "Elizabeth"”).

Pronunciation

Audio (AU) (file)
Rhymes: -ɛti

Noun

betty (plural betties)

(slang, slightly pejorative) An attractive woman; a babe.
A short bar used by thieves to wrench doors open; a jemmy.
- Arbuthnot
  The powerful betty, or the artful picklock.
(archaic, derogatory) A man who performs tasks that traditionally belong to a woman.
(US, archaic) A pear-shaped bottle covered with straw, in which olive oil is sometimes brought from Italy; a Florence flask.
(Can we find and add a quotation of Bartlett to this entry?)

Synonyms

(attractive woman): see Thesaurus:beautiful woman
(man who performs a woman's tasks): cot-betty, cot-quean, henhussy

Hyponyms

(man who performs a woman's tasks): househusband

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for betty in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

TBYTE, tbyte

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