bag lady

[bag ley-dee]

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

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of bag lady¹

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

"People called us the bag lady because I used to carry all my bags everywhere."

Read more on BBC

Anne Meara was the talk of the town in the role of a bag lady who spurned the self-congratulatory charity of guilty swells.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

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

Read more on New York Times

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.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

A bag lady wearing a complicated mask dug into her luggage and produced filthy masks to offer those who had joyfully unmasked themselves.

Read more on Washington Times

Related Words

• homeless person www.thesaurus.com
• shopping cart lady www.thesaurus.com
• shopping-bag lady 
• unhoused person www.thesaurus.com