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curtain lecture

noun

  1. Older Use. a scolding administered in private by a wife to her husband.


curtain lecture

noun

  1. a scolding or rebuke given in private, esp by a wife to her husband
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of curtain lecture1

First recorded in 1625–35
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Word History and Origins

Origin of curtain lecture1

alluding to the curtained beds where such rebukes were once given
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Example Sentences

The curtain lecture was followed next day by a refusal to allow Mr. Sheridan to have the horses till the account was settled.

We have reason to believe that there was never even a curtain-lecture delivered on the subject of the purse-silk.

The tintinnabulations of the wife's curtain lecture are too precious to the enraptured husband to be shared with other ears.

Eleanore teased, and he was gruff; or he mocked, and Eleanore delivered a curtain lecture.

This is her plan to make me listen to a curtain-lecture in her room.

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