the King's English
CulturalExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“He may butcher the King’s English occasionally, and God knows he tweets too much, but he’s got my back,” Mr. Pennacchio said.
From New York Times ● Oct. 16, 2020
The Brontës’ novels are stuffed full of dialect, and Heathcliff hardly speaks the King’s English.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 16, 2019
On the other hand, I’m not as optimistic as Paul Krugman, whom I always read because he’s the smartest leftist I’ve ever read and he uses the King’s English very well.
From Forbes ● Sep. 25, 2014
And it made the cast members - with skills barely advanced beyond strutting, scrapping, carousing and mangling the King's English - into stars.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 18, 2012
It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that the double negative was declared a sin against the King’s English, on the ground that one negative canceled the other.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
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.
