family roof

English

Noun

family roof (plural family roofs)

1. (dated, historical) A large, old-fashioned model of umbrella.
   • 1868, Frances Parthenope Verney, Stone Edge, Smith, Elder & Co. (publ.), page 56.

     And he took the big family roof and held it over them both.

   • 1873 September, Ellis Gray "Up, or Down?", in Our Young Folks, Vol. IX, No. IX, page 561.

     Off went Dick, returning in two minutes with mamma's pretty sun-umbrella, papa's silk one with the ivory handle, and Dinah's family roof, an immense structure of whalebone and cotton, originally green, now faded and streaked with blue, black and yellow, till it looked like one vast bruise, — the stick as tough and substantial as Dinah herself, the handle an immense brass hook that Squeers himself might have envied.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see family,‎ roof.

Translations

large umbrella

• Dutch: besteedster f, vroegpreek f
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