curtain lecture

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English

Etymology

An allusion to the curtains that hung around old-fashioned beds.

Noun

curtain lecture (plural curtain lectures)

  1. A scolding given by a wife to her husband in bed.
    • 1649, Francis Quarles, Virgin Widow, act II, scene 1:
      I have pawn'd already her Tuftaffaty Peticote and all her Child-bed linnen, besides two tiffiny Aprons, and her bearing-cloth, for which I have had already two curtaine Lectures, and a black and blue eye.
    • 1714, Alexander Pope, The Wife of Bath:
      I still prevailed, and would be in the right, / Or curtain lectures made a restless night.
    • 1819, Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle:
      A curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering.
    • 1829, William Combe, The Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of a Wife, Canto 1:
      Yes, she may toss her head and hector, / But she shall have a curtain lecture ...
    • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 4, in Vanity Fair , London: Bradbury and Evans , published 1848, →OCLC:
      ... in a curtain lecture, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe.
    • 1973, Christina Stead, The Little Hotel, Text Classics, published 2016, page 201:
      Before she went, she gave Robert several curtain lectures; but he had little time for her and avoided her.

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