biddy

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɪdi/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ɪdi

Derived from Biddy, diminutive form of Bridget. It became a generic name for an Irish maid (US), and then for an old woman.

biddy (plural biddies)

1. (derogatory) A woman, especially an old woman; especially one regarded as fussy or mean or a gossipy busybody.
   • 1970-1975, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure

     That Mich drag Loretta sent me about 10 pictures of her so I wouldn't think her a "decrepit old lady." But too bad—she looked like someone's biddy aunt.

2. (uncommon) An attractive girl.
3. (archaic, colloquial) An Irish maidservant.
4. (by extension, derogatory) An Irishwoman.
5. A name used in calling a hen or chicken, often as "biddy-biddy-biddy".
   • c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 3, scene 4, line 115:

     Ay, biddy, come with me.

   • 1915, Thornton W. Burgess, chapter XI, in The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company:

     "Well, we'll see about it by and by," said Farmer Brown's boy. "There's the breakfast bell, and I haven't fed the biddies yet."

6. breasts (when used in the phrase "tig biddies" derived from "big tiddies")
   • 2005 Rejected: You Never Know What You're Gonna Get - Page 29

     It ain't like you ain't never seen these tig ole biddies before.

biddy (plural biddies)

1. (US) Alternative spelling of bitty.
   • 1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, Penguin Books (2014), page 210:

     “Was it in buckets or them little biddy cans?”