Dictionary

applewoman en · NOUN

Etymology

From apple + woman.

Meanings

1. (historical) A woman who sells apples outdoors.
   • Burning with impatience to discuss with the great MacGrawler the feasibility of his project, he quickened his pace almost into a run, and in a very few minutes, having only overthrown one chimney-sweeper and two applewomen by the way, he arrived at the sage’s door. 1830, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford, page 38:
   • […] we had dragged on near six Weeks of passive Existence without seeing a Soul but that old Apple-woman Sir Anthony, who is as disagreeable as the Place he lives in; 1778, Gregory Lewis Way, Learning at a Loss, or the Amours of Mr. Pedant and Miss Hartley, page 50:
   • […] he had formerly quarrelled with Sir Nicholas Rainton when he was Lord Mayor of London, for prohibiting an Apple-woman to sell Apples on the Lords Day within Pauls Church-yard […] 1646, William Prynne, Canterburies Doome, page 132:
   • She would have blown her nose on her fingers like an applewoman if she wanted to, he thought. 1937, Virginia Woolf, “‘1914’”, in The Years:

Forms