lounge lizard
See also: lounge-lizard
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]lounge lizard (plural lounge lizards)
- (Jazz-age or flapper slang) An idler or pleasure-seeker; a person who spends considerable time loitering in bars and cocktail lounges.
- 1937, George Orwell, chapter 7, in The Road to Wigan Pier:
- There is at least a tinge of truth in that picture of Southern England as one enormous Brighton inhabited by lounge-lizards.
- 1985 July 13, net.singles:
- I certainly don't advocate trying to copy some Las Vegas lounge lizard.
- 1995 January 20, The Washington Post,:
- With his panther glide and lounge-lizard eyes, Fishburne has become one of film's most mesmerizing stars.
- 2003 March 17, The New Yorker,:
- Someone should pull together a major movie for this actor, because he’s great at playing heels with a vagrant streak of decency—say, a lounge lizard with feelings, an uncomfortably adulterous husband.
- A lounge singer, especially in Las Vegas.
- 1999, Nevada Department of Economic Development[1]:
- Wayne Newton says he has one request: Never call an entertainer a "lounge lizard."
- 2002 October 14, The New Yorker,:
- A second later, funky beats and distorted guitars kicked in, and then quirky hip-hop-style vocals with a country-and-Western lounge-lizard overlay.
- 2014, Tara Murtha, Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe[2]:
- The distorted phrasing feels almost hokey, in the vein of what we typically think of as Vegas lounge-lizard style, quick talk-sing phrasing punctuated by sustained soaring notes.
- 2015, James Kaplan, Sinatra: The Chairman[3]:
- Ross had expected to find a hungover Vegas lounge lizard; instead, he witnessed a surprising demonstration of Frank [Sinatra] at the peak of his powers.
- 1999, Nevada Department of Economic Development[1]:
- (slang) A person who spends a lot of time sitting or lying down, often watching television, eating snacks or drinking alcohol.
- Synonyms: couch potato; see also Thesaurus:idler
- 1994, Marguerite Kelly, Marguerite Kelly's Family Almanac[4], page 216:
- Watch only thirty to ninety minutes of TV a day, so people don't think you're a lounge lizard, a couch potato, or a pet rock.
- 2010, Gerard Goggin, Global Mobile Media[5], page 95:
- Social television is a direct challenge to the idea that television is an anti-social, lower-class, lounge-lizard, couch surfing, domestic, household activity.
- 2012, Benny Goodman, Sweetest Moments Finest Hours[6], page 28:
- Mort, who was still welded to the sofa, spoke without looking up as he needed to concentrate on rolling a cigarette. Lounge lizard? Couch potato? Perish the thought!
- [2017, Martina Nicolls, Similar but Different in the Animal Kingdom[7], page 382:
- A lounge lizard is a phrase meaning that someone is lazy, like a lizard, because the person is sitting on a couch or armchair.]