broad in the beam

Idioms  

1. Having broad hips or large buttocks. For example, I've grown too broad in the beam for these slacks. This expression originated in the 17th century and described the wideness of a ship. It began to be used for the human body only in the 1920s.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

broad in the beam

“Why, Teddy was a slim boy of fourteen, and this laddie here’s a fine strapping fellow, nearly six feet high, and as broad in the beam as a Dutch sloop!”

From On Board the Esmeralda Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story by William Heysham Overend

“See that feller holdin’ up the corner of the depot with his back! the one that’s so broad in the beam he has to draw in his breath afore he can button his coat.

From Cap'n Warren's Wards by Joseph Crosby Lincoln

The hulk President was a plain solid barque of one thousand tons register, broad in the beam.

From Nevermore by Rolf Bolderwood

He lived near the inlet, and had the kind of boat commonly used in these shallow waters—flat-bottomed, broad in the beam, with centre-board and one mast set well forward.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 33, December, 1873 by Various

They were a kindly folk, open of face, and fresh-complexioned, broad in the beam, and vested as to their bodies in dark blue, brass-buttoned pilot coats.

From The Nebuly Coat by John Meade Falkner