biddy

See also: Biddy and Biddie

English edit

Derived from Biddy, diminutive form of Bridget. It became a generic name for an Irish maid (US), and then for an old woman.

biddy (plural biddies)

(derogatory) A woman, especially an old woman; especially one regarded as fussy or mean or a gossipy busybody.
- 1970-1975, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
  That Mich drag Loretta sent me about 10 pictures of her so I wouldn't think her a "decrepit old lady." But too bad—she looked like someone's biddy aunt.
(uncommon) An attractive girl.
(archaic, colloquial) An Irish maidservant.
(by extension, derogatory) An Irishwoman.
A name used in calling a hen or chicken, often as "biddy-biddy-biddy".
- c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 3, scene 4, line 115:
  Ay, biddy, come with me.
- 1915, Thornton W. Burgess, chapter XI, in The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company:
  "Well, we'll see about it by and by," said Farmer Brown's boy. "There's the breakfast bell, and I haven't fed the biddies yet."
breasts (when used in the phrase "tig biddies" derived from "big tiddies")
- 2005 Rejected: You Never Know What You're Gonna Get - Page 29
  It ain't like you ain't never seen these tig ole biddies before.

a woman, especially an old woman; especially one regarded as fussy or mean or a gossipy busybody

an attractive little girl

a name used in calling a hen or chicken

biddy (plural biddies)

(US) Alternative spelling of bitty.
- 1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, Penguin Books (2014), page 210:
  “Was it in buckets or them little biddy cans?”