First recorded in 1835–45; named after Bertha (died a.d. 783), wife of Frankish king Pepin the Short; she was famed for her modesty
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To show that it was the PKF proteins that were doing the killing, University of British Columbia molecular biologist David Theilmann and colleagues infected bertha armyworms with two baculovirus species, MacoNPV-A and MacoNPV-B.
From Science Magazine ● Jul. 29, 2021
Edwardian sleeves and bertha collars, ribbons, roses and trailing black velvet are the tricks of the trade.
From Time Magazine Archive
By the way, here is Miss Tiffton's square-necked bertha.
From Bad Hugh by Holmes, Mary Jane
Leslie unpinned from its cambric cover a gray iron barége, with a narrow puffing round the hem of the full skirt and the little pointed bertha cape.
From A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. by Whitney, A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train)
She wore an old black silk frock with muslin bertha.
From A Daughter of the Vine by Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
U.S. natural gas futures settled higher with the market looking to Thursday’s weekly storage report and keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Bertha as the system moves along the Louisiana coast toward Texas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Tropical Storm Bertha spread across northwestern Florida Tuesday, where it was predicted to bring coastal flooding and heavy rainfall, the National Hurricane Center said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
Bertha is forecast to weaken back to a tropical depression on Thursday and may dissipate by the end of the week as it nears the Texas coast.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Dolores Bertha Schmidt was born in San Francisco on Aug. 21, 1919, the oldest of three children.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2025
Bertha tries to shut the door, but she isn’t fast enough.
From "Amari and the Night Brothers" by B.B. Alston
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
