seven-year itch
[ sev-en-yeer ]
/ ˈsɛv ɛnˌyɪər /
noun
the temptation to have an affair, held to become a hazard in the seventh year of marriage.
RELATED CONTENT
Itch vs. Scratch: What’s The Difference?Okay, this one might make you feel a little itchy. An itch is a skin irritation that causes the desire to scratch. Scratch describes the action used to relieve an itch. The grammatically correct construction is “to scratch an itch.” People often use itch and scratch in place of each other in everyday speech. For example, you may hear people saying they need to “itch …
Nearby words
- seven-league boots,
- seven-segment display,
- seven-seven,
- seven-spot,
- seven-up,
- sevenbark,
- sevener,
- sevenfold,
- sevenpenny,
- sevens
Origin of seven-year itch
An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
seven-year itch
noun
informal a tendency towards infidelity, traditionally said to begin after about seven years of marriage
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
seven-year itch
1899, American English, some sort of skin condition (sometimes identified with poison ivy infection) that either lasts seven years or returns every seven years. Jocular use for "urge to stray from marital fidelity" is attested from 1952, as the title of the Broadway play (made into a film, 1955) by George Axelrod (1922-2003), in which the lead male character reads an article describing the high number of men have extra-marital affairs after seven years of marriage.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper