Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun plural Long sideburns worn with a clean-shaven chin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun rare long, bushy sideburns

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After Lord Dundreary, a character in the play Our American Cousin (1858) by British playwright Tom Taylor.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

An eponym given rise to by Lord Dundreary's hairstyle in Our American Cousin

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Examples

  • I must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers, clapping on the table so as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory Allelujurum was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring through his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he calls her.

    Ulysses 2003

  • But a dreadful change comes to _Uncle Bill_ -- he buys his clothes ready-made (at _La boutique fantasque_, for a guess, or possibly Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY'S), grows dundrearies and goes hopelessly off his game at golf.

    Punch or the London Charivari, Volume 158, March 24, 1920. Various

  • I must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers, clapping on the table so as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory Allelujurum was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring through his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he calls her.

    Ulysses James Joyce 1911

Comments

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  • Origin: 1860–65; after the sideburns worn by actor Edward A. Sothern as Lord Dundreary, a character in the play Our American Cousin (1858) by Tom Taylor

    October 26, 2007