bag lady
noun
: a homeless woman who roams the streets of a city carrying her possessions in shopping bags
Examples of bag lady in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
These are great expressive bags & pouches written and created by the original New York City bag lady, Pamela Barsky.
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ABC News, 16 Dec. 2022
The play is filled with outlandish characters — most conspicuously, Trudy, the bag lady, who has lost her mind and in the process has made contact with space aliens curious about higher consciousness on Earth.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 30 Sep. 2022
The choral ensembles were stirring and effective, especially those for the women portraying Verdi’s witches, depicted in this staging as like a sisterhood of frumpily dressed yet menacing bag ladies.
—New York Times, 26 Sep. 2019
ABC News, 16 Dec. 2022
The play is filled with outlandish characters — most conspicuously, Trudy, the bag lady, who has lost her mind and in the process has made contact with space aliens curious about higher consciousness on Earth.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 30 Sep. 2022
The choral ensembles were stirring and effective, especially those for the women portraying Verdi’s witches, depicted in this staging as like a sisterhood of frumpily dressed yet menacing bag ladies.
—New York Times, 26 Sep. 2019
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bag lady.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
First Known Use
1972, in the meaning defined above
Dictionary Entries Near bag lady
Cite this Entry
“Bag lady.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bag%20lady. Accessed 9 Dec. 2023.
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