Alexandra limp

English

Alternative forms

• Alexandrian limp

Etymology

Named after Alexandra of Denmark (1844–1925), then Princess of Wales, whose limp it imitates.

Noun

Alexandra limp (plural Alexandra limps)

1. A limping gait affected by fashionable women in imitation of the then Princess of Wales who had some trouble with a knee. [from 1869]
   • 1869 December 9, “The Ladies of Edinburgh and the Alexandra Limp”, in The Dundee Courier & Argus, number 5103, Dundee, page [4], column 2:

     A monstrosity has made itself visible among the female promenaders in Princes Street, viz., “the Alexandra limp!” […] Indeed, one decent woman expressed her pity in an audible “Puir things!” as she passed, but I was enlightened by hearing a pretty girl exclaim to her companion, “Why that’s the Alexandra limp! How ugly!”

   • 1875 November, “Mr. Frank Curzon on “Rags and Bones.””, in The British Lyceum; […], volume I, number 2, London: […] William Medlen Hutchings, […], page 31, column 1:

     They knew nothing of boots tapered where the foot was broadest, of high heels, which threw the body off its balance, and of “Alexandra limps.”

   • 1880, Charlotte M[ary] Yonge, “Autobiography of Patty Applecheeks”, in Bye-Words: A Collection of Tales New and Old, London: Macmillan and Co., page 304:

     She quite deserves it, for now she thinks her counterpart is gone she has broken out more ridiculously than ever with her hair frizzed out, and her Alexandra limp, and all her most unnatural airs!

References

• “Alexandra limp”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present
• “Alexandra limp” under “Alexandra, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.