Gladstone bag

American  

noun

1. a small rectangular suitcase hinged to open into two compartments of equal size.

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Gladstone bag British  

noun

1. a piece of hand luggage consisting of two equal-sized hinged compartments

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Etymology

Origin of Gladstone bag

First recorded in 1880–85; after W.E. Gladstone

Example Sentences

Gladstone bag and all, the book has become a delicious and gossipy literary event in England.

From Time Magazine Archive

Behind his padlocked closet door lay a Gladstone bag.

From Time Magazine Archive

At meetings of collectors' clubs, he often appears lugging in his thin white fingers an ancient dilapidated Gladstone bag.

From Time Magazine Archive

As its title suggests, however, the shoestring vacation abroad has gone the way of the Gladstone bag and $4 Mo�t et Chandon.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then I caught sight of a trunk and a Gladstone bag beneath one bunk, and another trunk beneath that opposite.

From A Crime of the Under-seas by Boothby, Guy Newell