Dictionary

plummy en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈplʌmi/
• plŭmʹē
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From plum + -y. In the sense of a voice, because of the supposed similarity to speaking with a plum in one's mouth.

Meanings

1. Of, pertaining to, containing, or characteristic of plums.
   • The jam had a rich plummy aroma.
2. (informal) Desirable; profitable; advantageous.
   • The poets have made tragedies enough about signing one's self over to wickedness for the sake of getting something plummy; I shall write a tragedy of a fellow who signed himself over to be good, and was uncomfortable ever after. 1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 16, in Daniel Deronda, volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC:
3. (of a voice) Rich, mellow and carefully articulated, especially with an upper-class accent.
   • Ludovic's deferential voice ("after what's happened, Sir, don't you think it will be more suitable") suddenly turns from its plummy to the plebeian key ("to shut your bloody trap"). 1968, Harry John Mooney, Thomas F. Staley, The Shapeless God: Essays on Modern Fiction, page 85:
   • The fact that David Cameron, the conservative prime minister, is a plummy-voiced, Eton-educated, upper-class Brit from central casting has played into [Alex] Salmond's hands. 2014 March 31, Roger Cohen, “The case for Scotland”, in The New York Times:
   • plummy-voiced
   • Reviewing a collection of Tom Wolfe’s journalism, Hitchens deplored Wolfe’s affectations and his plummy conservative politics. 2024 January 1, Dwight Garner, “Want to Feel, Intellectually, Like Someone Is Rotating Your Tires?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • But a plummy-voiced Labour peer, Baron Peter Hain, decided to defy the court order, invoking his parliamentary privilege to identify Mr. Green as the subject of the newspaper’s investigation. 2018 October 26, Ellen Barry, Amie Tsang, “London’s King of Retail Fashion, Brought Low by #MeToo”, in New York Times:
   • Then, feeling the fat hands caressing her reluctant bosom, listening dutifully to the rich, plummy voice, she realized finally what marriage to the King meant. 1948, Michael Glenne, Catherine Howard: The Story of Henry VIII's Fifth Queen, page 137:
   • We don’t talk enough about the classism that fuels trans and other faddish beliefs. Plummy students and the managerial elites might accrue ever-more virtue points through embracing the gender ideology. But for working-class women, that ideology has been a disaster. 2026 January 23, Brendan O'Neill, “Gender ideology has been a disaster for working-class women”, in The Spectator:

Forms

Deriveds

plummily · plumminess

Relateds

cherry · peachy · plum in one's mouth