dead donkey
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.61 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A rarity.
noun
A news item of no real significance, usually of whimsical or sentimental nature, placed at the end of a news bulletin or in a newspaper as filler. A dead donkey can often be removed from the programme or publication if a more significant story needs extra time or space.
Example Sentences
- "A dead bore is as rare a phenomenon as a dead donkey or a dead attorney."
- "“No,” rejoined Sam, triumphantly. “Nor never vill; and there's another thing that no man never see, and that’s a dead donkey—no man never see a dead donkey, ’cept the gen’l’m’n in the black silk smalls as know’d the young ’ooman as kept a goat; and that wos a French donkey, so wery likely he warn’t vun o’ the reg’lar breed.”"
- "I say, if they only get proper treatment, it will be no more likely to see a dead heath than it would be to see a dead donkey."
- "From Nigeria, news that the Sultan of Sokoto, head of Fulani Moslems in West Africa, has denounced Mau Mau. African denunciations of Mau Mau have become rarer than dead donkeys."
- "MESSRS DIXON AND ATKINSON state that broken neutrals are seen as often as a dead donkey."
- "Jacques, that's our gardener, says nobody has ever seen a dead donkey."