aunt sally
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.75 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A traditional game in which balls are thrown to break the pipe in the mouth of a wooden figurine resembling an old woman.
name
A figure drawing criticism or ridicule, especially when prejudiced or unwarranted.
British usage
name
A figure drawing criticism or ridicule, especially when prejudiced or unwarranted.
British usage
Example Sentences
- "There were some swings, and a hooting-tooting blaring merry-go-round, and a shooting-gallery and Aunt Sallies."
- "Mrs. Morel did not like the wakes. There were two sets of horses, one going by steam, one pulled round by a pony; three organs were grinding, and there came odd cracks of pistol-shots, fearful screeching of the cocoanut man's rattle, shouts of the Aunt Sally man, screeches from the peep-show lady."
- "But the novel is something more than a national institution; it has become the recognized channel of communication between the crank and his victims; it is the shooting gallery through which we fire our messages at that dear old Aunt Sally, the British Public."
- "He is helpless, an Aunt Sally, a figure from a cartoon, a missionary in cassock and topi waiting with clasped hands and upcast eyes while the savages jaw away in their own lingo preparatory to plunging him into their boiling cauldron."
- "IN FOUR years as India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh has come to resemble a bearded and turbaned Aunt Sally."
- "The finance minister, a true Aunt Sally figure, was dispatched to Moscow in search of backing."
Etymology
Apparently after My Old Aunt Sally, the title of a blackface minstrel song written by Dan Emmett in 1843.
Usage
- British usage