clinging vine

noun

, Informal.

1. a person who behaves in a helpless and dependent manner in relationships with others.

clinging vine

noun

1. informal.
   a woman who displays excessive emotional dependence on a man

Word History and Origins

Origin of clinging vine¹

An Americanism dating back to 1960–65

Idioms and Phrases

An overly dependent person, as in A clinging vine since her marriage, she's never made a decision on her own . Nearly always applied to a woman (or wife), this metaphor for a climbing plant today criticizes dependency rather than, as in former times, praising the vine's fruitfulness.

Example Sentences

He checked a clinging vine with white flowers.

From Los Angeles Times

She was a veritable clinging vine.

From Project Gutenberg

He had discovered before he married Orlean that she was likely to prove much unlike his sister, who possessed the strength of her convictions, for she was on the clinging vine order.

From Project Gutenberg

Not so closely interwine The graceful Elm and clinging Vine, When to bosom of the tree Bacchus' clusters prest you see, And the Nymph the fruit receives, And hides it amid dewy leaves; Ev'n as the poets tell of old, In legends of the Age of Gold.

From Project Gutenberg

Then, striving to make up for lost time, he became more and more confused; and finally, catching his foot in a clinging vine, at the top of a little ravine, he pitched forward, half fell, half rolled, down the slope, struck his head violently against some hard substance at the bottom, and lay still, his face upturned to the sky, over his forehead a little trickling stream of blood.

From Project Gutenberg