Idiom
handbags at dawn
Meaning
A catty squabble.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The meeting turned into handbags at dawn over a minor seating choice.”
“The two coworkers started a petty argument about the coffee machine, which quickly turned into handbags at dawn.”
“The neighbors are having another round of handbags at dawn because one of them left their recycling bin in the wrong spot again.”
“What began as a professional disagreement regarding the project timeline soon devolved into handbags at dawn, much to the embarrassment of the entire department.”
Examples
simple
“The meeting turned into handbags at dawn over a minor seating choice.”
contextual
“The two coworkers started a petty argument about the coffee machine, which quickly turned into handbags at dawn.”
“The neighbors are having another round of handbags at dawn because one of them left their recycling bin in the wrong spot again.”
complex
“What began as a professional disagreement regarding the project timeline soon devolved into handbags at dawn, much to the embarrassment of the entire department.”
Origin
First appears in the UK in the 1980s. A jocular derivation from pistols at dawn, replacing pistols with handbags, referring to women hitting each other with handbags during a catfight. The phrase originated in football. It may have been influenced by the phrase handbagging meaning a verbal dressing-down, in reference to the then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; and by the Monty Python sketch The Batley Townswomen's Guild Presents the Battle of Pearl Harbor (season 1, episode 11. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Goes to the Bathroom, December 1969), in which the actors flail at each other with handbags in a muddy field.
Key words
Related idioms
- Updated