a wealthy lady in George Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem, noted for her kindness and generosity.
(sometimes lowercase) a woman of noteworthy generosity or charity.
after a character in George Farquhar's play The Beaux' Stratagem (1707)
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But count on it: The District’s days of playing Lady Bountiful, ostentatiously spending other people’s money on benevolent causes, are numbered.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 15, 2021
That she apparently contains multitudes is an especially useful trait in joining the joyful Lady Bountiful of the opening scenes with the mad misanthrope of the later ones.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2020
In 14 lines, she managed to cast America—in reality a raucous young nation built by the brains and brawn of newcomers—as a sort of Lady Bountiful, selflessly extending asylum to the poorest and most wretched.
From Economist ● Nov. 7, 2013
All the same, it is obvious from this debacle that the NEA should not have set itself up as the Lady Bountiful of the so-called cutting edge, as it did in the '80s.
From Time Magazine Archive
She is happy as Lady Bountiful, and she has half made up her mind to marry that heavy-headed, heavy-limbed squire.
From The Man Who Rose Again by Hocking, Joseph
In Decatur, 111., a lady bountiful gave a seedy-looking stranger $1 and a cheery injunction: "Keep your spirits high."
From Time Magazine Archive
Maidens may not need much protection from pestilence these days, but the Y.W. is still the lady bountiful helping young girls in need.
From Time Magazine Archive
In The Fly a man kills a fly; in A Cup of Tea, Rosemary Fell, young, wealthy, plays lady bountiful to a starving girl and takes her home for tea.
From Time Magazine Archive
She liked nothing better than finding out some obscure and distant connection—there were several of them—and acting the lady bountiful, leaving behind her bewilderment, and too often discontent.
From Where Angels Fear to Tread by Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
So long as China was weak, and consequently unable to resent the patronage of her friend, so long was Russia able to play "my lady bountiful" with a good grace and perfect success.
From The Life of Yakoob Beg Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar by Boulger, Demetrius Charles
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.
