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apple-pie bed

American  

noun

  1. a bed that has been short-sheeted as a joke.


apple-pie bed British  

noun

  1. a way of making a bed so as to prevent the person from entering it

"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 apple-pie bed

First recorded in 1770–80

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.

Listen again to one Montagu, a sixth-form boy who has caught a gang of dormitory roysterers preparing an apple-pie bed for him.

From The Lighter Side of School Life by Hay, Ian

In the throes of composition Belvane had quite forgotten the apple-pie bed, so absorbing is our profession.

From Once on a Time by Robinson, Charles

Pym knew whole States which are vast and yet secret and fanciful; each is as big as a nation yet as private as a lost village, and as unexpected as an apple-pie bed.

From Manalive by Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)

It was the most perfect apple-pie bed ever made.

From Once on a Time by Robinson, Charles

He took the clothes-brush and set it firmly, bristles outward, against the bottom of the folded sheet of the apple-pie bed, where one or the other of Captain Baster's feet was sure to find it.

From The Terrible Twins by Jepson, Edgar

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