Fleet Street

Fleet Street

English

Etymology

From the (now underground) River Fleet, over which much of Fleet Street runs.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfliːt ˌstɹiːt/

Proper noun

Fleet Street

1. A street in Westminster that runs from Ludgate Hill to the Strand, formerly the centre of English journalism.
2. (by extension) English journalism or journalists as a group.
   • 1981, Richard Howard Stafford Crossman, Janet P. Morgan, The Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman (page 141)

     Whenever I feel really depressed about the stinkingness of politics, I take a dive into Fleet Street and see what stinkingness really is.

   • 2014, Michael White, "Roll up, roll up! The Amazing Salmond will show a Scotland you won't believe", The Guardian, 8 September 2014:

     We will know soon enough whether Cameron's was a masterly piece of nerve keeping, or the fatal blunder that broke the union of 1707. In 2012, Salmond gave some listeners the impression that devo max is what he really wanted. Whatever the outcome, Fleet Street's introspective pundits will say: "I told you so", and make dire predictions for the future, which are likely to be off the mark.