Dagwood sandwich

English

A Dagwood sandwich

Alternative forms

• Dagwood

Etymology

After Dagwood Bumstead, a character in the American comic strip Blondie.

Noun

Dagwood sandwich (plural Dagwood sandwiches)

1. (informal) An exceptionally thick sandwich made with numerous layers of various meats, cheeses, vegetables, and condiments.
   • 1980, Arthur Asa Berger, Television As An instrument of Terror, →ISBN, page 76:

     The kind of sandwich he made famous, the Dagwood sandwich, is a hodgepodge of leftovers in the refrigerator all wedged in between two slices of bread.

   • 1999 September 7, Tom Zeller, “Nutrition: When Refrigerator Raiders Lose Control”, in New York Times, retrieved 19 April 2014:

     Everyone gets the late-night munchies now and then, whether for rocky road ice cream or a Dagwood sandwich of salami, pickles and deli Swiss on rye.

   • 2012 November 1, Brian Truitt, “Dagwood runs for president in longtime 'Blondie' strip”, in USA Today, retrieved 19 April 2014:

     And who wouldn't like to think of the Dagwood sandwich somewhere on the White House menu?

2. (figuratively, by extension) A thick stack of flat objects or a complicated melange of diverse components or ingredients.
   • 1956 February 27, “Medicine: Don't-Give-a-Damn Pills”, in Time, retrieved 19 April 2014:

     As one of Groucho Marx's writers told it: an unemployed actor was interrupted at breakfast by his wife carrying a Dagwood sandwich of unpaid bills.

   • 1984 August 28, Erik Sandberg-Diment, “Personal Computers: Awkward Junior Has Growing Pains”, in New York Times, retrieved 19 April 2014:

     [T]o use the full 512K theoretically available, one will have a computer carrying a Dagwood sandwich of expansion attachments on one of its sides.

   • 2013 December 18, Jim Geraghty, “The Week So Far: A Dagwood Sandwich of Bad News for Obamacare”, in National Review Online, retrieved 19 April 2014:

     Today’s Morning Jolt is just a Dagwood sandwich of bad news for Obamacare, piled higher and higher.

Translations

exceptionally thick sandwich

• Swedish: Dagobertmacka c, Dagobertsmörgås c

References

• “Dagwood sandwich”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.