Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A woman regarded as scolding and vicious.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An odious old woman; a hag; a vixenish woman.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A worn-out strumpet; a vixenish woman; a hag.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a scolding (even vicious) old woman
Etymologies
- Possibly from French haridelle, gaunt woman, old horse, nag.
Examples
“The word "harridan" derives from the French word "haridelle" - a worn-out horse or nag.”
“I really thought before I used the word harridan to describe Senator Clinton's outburst.”
“I recalled a harridan of satanic disposition old enough to have written the first drafts of most of her charges.”
Petty Pewter Gods
“Look up "harridan" in the dictionary and Annie's picture looks back at you.”
“In this column, Dowd claims that conservatives were trying to paint Michelle Obama as a "harridan", but of course she offers absolutely no examples of how conservatives were attempting this feat.”
“notmaxclifford - its just too ungallant to refer to Jenny as a 'harridan'.”
“No less a harridan for safety than the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has dubbed his campaign misguided.”
“In my book, I refer to my mother as General Patton in pedal pushers, and frequently paint her as a shrieking harridan for whom water in the kitchen sink or unraked shag carpeting could produce bouts of rage: earsplitting, fist-shaking, God-summoning rage that fortunately predated the presence of guns in the suburban household.”
The Huffington Post: Eric Poole: She has Every Right to Kill Me
“And they proceeded to blindly follow the heartless, shrewish harridan Margaret Thatcher.”
“Over the years, I'd gone from what I fondly imagined to be a switched-on, youngish-minded mum to a rancid, middle-aged harridan, glaring at shrieking texting huddles in the street – youngsters I didn't even know, but would consider lightly birching.”
The Guardian: It's all too easy to hate teens – try a little love instead | Barbara Ellen
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘harridan’.
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Unsavory characters
absconder, aretaloger, arriviste, avaunter, bamboozler, bandit, banger, barbarian, barmecide, barrator, beldam, blatherskite and 190 more...
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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Interesting Words
A list of words that I find cool.
décolleté, ineluctably, pantechnicon, ossary, peripeteia, harridan, recidivist, irremediable, suppuration, slaver, loam, umbrage and 5 more...
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list01
I HEART MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!
clitoridectomy, pneumonoultramicr..., deipnosophist, zenana, quadragintesimal, lampadedromy, fundus, karyokinesis, machicolation, plasmapherisis, entomophagous, oxyopia and 36 more...
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Words So Useful That They Would be Overused if ...
gardyloo, avunculize, prorogue, mortmain, growlery, accubitus, harridan, illeism, apophasis, tmesis, palimpsest, catmalison and 7 more...
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Slam Fodder
Those words that will inevitable end up in a Slam Poem
feel free to challenge me!:)bumptious, gamekeeper, slamily, burbuliatorius, cryptomnesia, paradox, pulchritudinous, mimetic, anhedonia, skelf, rampike, furlough and 84 more...
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Scold
scold, callet, callat, catamaran, rixatrix, bard, vixen, nagger, termagant, chider, lambaster, frabber and 9 more...
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Insults that the insulted must look up in a dic...
fustilugs, harridan, hircismus, caprylic, hircine, capric, fussock, feist, cacafuego
john "Perhaps it is because feminists are still so busy cataloging past slights to Hillary that they have failed to mount a vivid defense of Michelle Obama, who has taken over from Hillary as the one conservatives like to paint as a harridan."
The New York Times, Mr. Darcy Comes Courting, by Maureen Down, August 3, 2008 Aug 3, 2008
singlepayernow i would say to a woman:
you are a harry dan! OR
you are a hairy dan! Nov 29, 2007