dorothy dixer
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
27
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A question asked of a minister by a member of their own party, to give the minister the opportunity to promote the government's work, criticise the opposition, etc.
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Dorothy Dixer.
Example Sentences
- "Betraying not a sign of the general mayhem he had just created, he answered a Dorothy Dixer about television violence."
- "On both sides of the chamber, Question Time became highly programmed. This led on the Government side to questions, almost without exception, being Dorothy Dixers of the worst kind.[…]The total domination of this sort of Dorothy Dixer under the Keating Government reduced the use of Question Time considerably."
- "The real and nasty political attack came later, in question time, when every Labor minister who stood in response to a Dorothy Dixer did so in order to aim a new kick at the cods of the Opposition leader, from a different direction."
Etymology
Named after US advice columnist Dorothy Dix (1870–1951), who reputedly invented some of the more interesting readers’ questions she answered, + -er.
Word Breakdown
- Suffix: er