boob tube

American  

noun

Informal.

1. television.

2. a television set.

---

boob tube British  

noun

1. a close-fitting strapless top, worn by women

2. a strapless, boneless, shapeless brassiere made of a stretch fabric

3. a television receiver

---

Etymology

Origin of boob tube

First recorded in 1965–70; rhyming coinage, from the notion that television programming is foolish, induces foolishness, or is watched by foolish people

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

boob tube

Your friendly neighborhood comic and commentator marks a quarter-century of snarking and smirking on the boob tube on very special episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2018

This one gets his information from cable news shows on the boob tube, which confusingly includes a show called The Situation Room.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 30, 2017

Then, in 1983, Armstrong and the writer Jack Mingo published “The Official Couch Potato Handbook,” a mock guide, very much of its time, to slouching proudly in front of the boob tube.

From The New Yorker ● Jul. 6, 2016

Does that mean pushing kids toward the iPad rather than the boob tube?

From Time ● Apr. 8, 2013

But anyway, Seferino Pacheco occasionally visited Onofre’s house, not to hear him play the piano—God forbid!—but simply to stare at Onofre’s miraculous boob tube, and also occasionally to listen to his friend read.

From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols