marplot
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of marplot
First recorded in 1700–10; mar + plot. Marplot was a character in a farce, The Busie Body (1709), by Susanna Centlivre, circa1667–1723, English actress, poet, and playwright
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Humpty is Puss’ childhood frenemy: pal, rival and seemingly inept marplot to our hero’s suave efficiency in a crisis.
From Time • Oct. 28, 2011
Sporting heiress airs, a cruel gash of lipstick and a series of killer frocks in the 1948 A Date with Judy, Taylor plays snooty Carol, the marplot to Jane Powell's swell-town girl.
From Time • Apr. 14, 2011
Sporting heiress airs, a cruel gash of lipstick and a series of killer frocks in the 1948 A Date With Judy, Taylor has the role of snooty Carol, the marplot to Jane Powell's swell-town girl.
From Time • Mar. 23, 2011
Woodrow Wilson, often his foe, called him a marplot.
From Time Magazine Archive
If in this theory government is the marplot and authority the source of oppression and stagnation, where are the springs of progress and civilization?
From Liberalism by Hobhouse, L. T. (Leonard Trelawny)
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.
