Idiom
honey do list
Meaning
A collection of requests, usually a list of household tasks assigned by a partner.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“My weekend is full of chores from my honey do list.”
“She adds fixing the leaky kitchen sink to his honey do list.”
“Does your honey do list include cleaning the garage this morning?”
“My partner left a long honey do list on the fridge for me to finish before Sunday.”
“I need to buy a new ladder at the hardware store because painting the ceiling is the first item on my honey do list.”
“We cannot go to the cinema tonight because I still have three difficult repairs left on my honey do list.”
“I spent all Saturday morning at the garden center buying plants because my husband finally added landscaping to my honey do list.”
“Despite his desire to spend the afternoon reading, he found himself overwhelmed by the extensive honey do list his wife had prepared for the weekend.”
Examples
simple
“My weekend is full of chores from my honey do list.”
“She adds fixing the leaky kitchen sink to his honey do list.”
“Does your honey do list include cleaning the garage this morning?”
contextual
“My partner left a long honey do list on the fridge for me to finish before Sunday.”
“I need to buy a new ladder at the hardware store because painting the ceiling is the first item on my honey do list.”
“We cannot go to the cinema tonight because I still have three difficult repairs left on my honey do list.”
“I spent all Saturday morning at the garden center buying plants because my husband finally added landscaping to my honey do list.”
complex
“Despite his desire to spend the afternoon reading, he found himself overwhelmed by the extensive honey do list his wife had prepared for the weekend.”
Origin
A mid-20th-century American pun on the honeydew melon, derived from the domestic appeal "Honey, do this" or "Honey, could you do..." The term emerged as a humorous label for a list of household chores assigned to a spouse, using the name Honey to facilitate the phonetic play.
Key words
Related idioms
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