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

IPA^(key): /bɛti/
Audio (AU) (file)
Rhymes: -ɛti

Noun

betty (plural betties)

(slang, slightly pejorative) An attractive woman; a babe.
- 1995, Amy Heckerling, Clueless, spoken by Cher (Alicia Silverstone):
  Isn't my house classic? The columns date all the way back to 1972. Wasn't my Mom a betty? She died when I was just a baby. A fluke accident during a routine liposuction. I don't remember her, but I like to pretend she still watches over me.
A short bar used by thieves to wrench doors open; a jimmy.
- 1712, John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull:
  The powerful betty, or the artful picklock.
(archaic, derogatory) A man who performs tasks that traditionally belong to a woman.
A baked dessert made with alternating layers of sweetened fruit and buttered bread crumbs.
- “Apple-Almond Brave Betty”, in Midwest Living, November 2021: “A pie-size betty is traditional, but if you like, assemble the recipe in individual ovenproof ramekins.”
(US, archaic) A pear-shaped bottle covered with straw, in which olive oil is sometimes brought from Italy; a Florence flask.
- 1841, Acts and Resolutions Passed at the First Session of the Twenty-Seventh Congress of the United States:
  On olive oil in casks, twenty cents per gallon; olive salad oil in bottles or betties, thirty per centum ad valorem

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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