Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 185

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Lawful Blanket

Unfortunately, this is another term that I have nothing useful to add to Grose’s definition, which is simply “a wife”. I’m not sure that this is the most suitable term for a man to use to describe his wife, but no doubt it was seen to be more acceptable at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The phrase is listed in numerous locations relating to etymology, but none of them has any clue where it comes from…… I can’t see it coming back into the English language either.