"end-of-the-pier" meaning in English

See end-of-the-pier in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: A reference to the pleasure piers in British seaside resorts, which often featured music hall entertainment and were popular working-class holiday locations. Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} end-of-the-pier (not comparable)
  1. (UK, usually derogatory) Pertaining to a bawdy, old-fashioned style of broad comedy. Tags: UK, derogatory, not-comparable, usually
    Sense id: en-end-of-the-pier-en-adj-Xj9tVtGS Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

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  "etymology_text": "A reference to the pleasure piers in British seaside resorts, which often featured music hall entertainment and were popular working-class holiday locations.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
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      "expansion": "end-of-the-pier (not comparable)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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        }
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1999, Andrew Blaikie, Ageing and Popular Culture, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 156:",
          "text": "Meanwhile, that butt of the end-of-the-pier comedian's joke, the mother-in-law as dictatorial hag, has become a figure associated with nostalgia for the days when workingmen's clubs were just that (and, indeed, marking a time when generations were forced to live cheek-by-jowl in the same household).",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Frieze: Contemporary Art and Culture:",
          "text": "It seems a simple yes or no question, but actually compresses a complex group of ideas - about sexuality, gender, meaning and the figurative history of sculpture - into something you might expect from an end-of-the-pier comedy routine.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Christopher Fowler, Paperboy, Random House, →ISBN, page 180:",
          "text": "The production employed the John Barry Seven to re-work the songs of Gilbert & Sullivan, setting them against the dancing of Lionel Blair, with eye-rolling, end-of-the-pier jokes from Mike and Bernie Winters and Tommy Cooper.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Pertaining to a bawdy, old-fashioned style of broad comedy."
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      "id": "en-end-of-the-pier-en-adj-Xj9tVtGS",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
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        [
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          "bawdy"
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        [
          "old-fashioned",
          "old-fashioned"
        ],
        [
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, usually derogatory) Pertaining to a bawdy, old-fashioned style of broad comedy."
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      "tags": [
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  "word": "end-of-the-pier"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "A reference to the pleasure piers in British seaside resorts, which often featured music hall entertainment and were popular working-class holiday locations.",
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "-"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English adjectives",
        "English derogatory terms",
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        "English lemmas",
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        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncomparable adjectives",
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        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1999, Andrew Blaikie, Ageing and Popular Culture, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 156:",
          "text": "Meanwhile, that butt of the end-of-the-pier comedian's joke, the mother-in-law as dictatorial hag, has become a figure associated with nostalgia for the days when workingmen's clubs were just that (and, indeed, marking a time when generations were forced to live cheek-by-jowl in the same household).",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Frieze: Contemporary Art and Culture:",
          "text": "It seems a simple yes or no question, but actually compresses a complex group of ideas - about sexuality, gender, meaning and the figurative history of sculpture - into something you might expect from an end-of-the-pier comedy routine.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Christopher Fowler, Paperboy, Random House, →ISBN, page 180:",
          "text": "The production employed the John Barry Seven to re-work the songs of Gilbert & Sullivan, setting them against the dancing of Lionel Blair, with eye-rolling, end-of-the-pier jokes from Mike and Bernie Winters and Tommy Cooper.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
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        "Pertaining to a bawdy, old-fashioned style of broad comedy."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, usually derogatory) Pertaining to a bawdy, old-fashioned style of broad comedy."
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        "derogatory",
        "not-comparable",
        "usually"
      ]
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  ],
  "word": "end-of-the-pier"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (eaedd02 and 8fbd9e8). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.