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Synonyms

bag lady

American  
[bag ley-dee] / ˈbæg ˌleɪ di /

noun

  1. Slang: Offensive. an unsheltered or homeless woman who lives and sleeps on city streets or in public places, often keeping all her belongings with her in shopping bags.

  2. bagwoman.


bag lady British  

noun

  1. Also called (in full): shopping bag lady.  a woman who is homeless and wanders city streets with all her possessions in shopping bags

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of bag lady

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Ms. Komar said: “That she was seen as some kind of bag lady, that her art gets overshadowed by those stories, makes us angry.”

From New York Times • Jan. 26, 2024

The play is filled with outlandish characters — most conspicuously, Trudy, the bag lady, who has lost her mind and in the process has made contact with space aliens curious about higher consciousness on Earth.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 30, 2022

“I thought I would be a bag lady 10 years from now saying, ‘Hey, I invented those,’ ” Ms. Revson told The Post in 1995.

From Washington Post • Sep. 19, 2022

Dench has a baffling cameo as a bag lady in this world-historically terrible and unfunny farce by Ray Cooney.

From The Guardian • Apr. 18, 2019

With a slight push, a slip over some ill-defined edge, I could turn into a bag lady.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood