gooseberry pudding

English

Alternative forms

• gooseberry pudden

Etymology

UK circa 1857. Based on a forced rhyme and dialectal pronunciation of pudding and woman.

Noun

gooseberry pudding (plural gooseberry puddings)

1. A pudding made with gooseberries.
2. (Cockney rhyming slang) A woman.
3. (Cockney rhyming slang) A wife.

References

• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1893) “gooseberry pudding”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume III, [London: […] Harrison and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 184.
• Eric Partridge, The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang. Routledge, 1973. →ISBN.