"live over the brush" meaning in English

See live over the brush in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: lives over the brush [present, singular, third-person], living over the brush [participle, present], lived over the brush [participle, past], lived over the brush [past]
Etymology: Possibly ultimately derived from broomstick wedding, with broomstick meaning ersatz or sham. Often said to be derived from early British or Romani wedding practices, in which a couple could become married outside the Church by leaping a broom or brush, but no evidence exists for such a ceremony. Etymology templates: {{m|en|broomstick}} broomstick, {{m|en|ersatz}} ersatz, {{m|en|sham}} sham Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} live over the brush (third-person singular simple present lives over the brush, present participle living over the brush, simple past and past participle lived over the brush)
  1. (Northern England, idiomatic) To cohabit without being married. Tags: Northern-England, idiomatic Synonyms: live in sin
    Sense id: en-live_over_the_brush-en-verb-EqFEjRFb Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Northern England English

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for live over the brush meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "broomstick"
      },
      "expansion": "broomstick",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ersatz"
      },
      "expansion": "ersatz",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "sham"
      },
      "expansion": "sham",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Possibly ultimately derived from broomstick wedding, with broomstick meaning ersatz or sham. Often said to be derived from early British or Romani wedding practices, in which a couple could become married outside the Church by leaping a broom or brush, but no evidence exists for such a ceremony.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "lives over the brush",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "living over the brush",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "lived over the brush",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "lived over the brush",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "live over the brush (third-person singular simple present lives over the brush, present participle living over the brush, simple past and past participle lived over the brush)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Northern England English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1982, Peter Tinniswood, The Home Front, page 10",
          "text": "I know what people think about the North. They think it's all muck and living over the brush with women like Elsie Tanner.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1991, Punch, volume 300, page 134",
          "text": "After the birth of their son, Stanley, the couple moved to Bradford and \"lived over the brush\" in West Bowling in a back-to-back terraced house.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Gilda O'Neill, Just Around the Corner",
          "text": "I was saying to my Albert, I wouldn't be surprised if him and that so-called wife of his was living over the brush.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cohabit without being married."
      ],
      "id": "en-live_over_the_brush-en-verb-EqFEjRFb",
      "links": [
        [
          "cohabit",
          "cohabit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Northern England, idiomatic) To cohabit without being married."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "live in sin"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Northern-England",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "live over the brush"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "broomstick"
      },
      "expansion": "broomstick",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ersatz"
      },
      "expansion": "ersatz",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "sham"
      },
      "expansion": "sham",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Possibly ultimately derived from broomstick wedding, with broomstick meaning ersatz or sham. Often said to be derived from early British or Romani wedding practices, in which a couple could become married outside the Church by leaping a broom or brush, but no evidence exists for such a ceremony.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "lives over the brush",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "living over the brush",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "lived over the brush",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "lived over the brush",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "live over the brush (third-person singular simple present lives over the brush, present participle living over the brush, simple past and past participle lived over the brush)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Northern England English"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1982, Peter Tinniswood, The Home Front, page 10",
          "text": "I know what people think about the North. They think it's all muck and living over the brush with women like Elsie Tanner.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1991, Punch, volume 300, page 134",
          "text": "After the birth of their son, Stanley, the couple moved to Bradford and \"lived over the brush\" in West Bowling in a back-to-back terraced house.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Gilda O'Neill, Just Around the Corner",
          "text": "I was saying to my Albert, I wouldn't be surprised if him and that so-called wife of his was living over the brush.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cohabit without being married."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "cohabit",
          "cohabit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Northern England, idiomatic) To cohabit without being married."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Northern-England",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "live in sin"
    }
  ],
  "word": "live over the brush"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.