kerbstone
nounEtymology From kerb + stone.
1
UK A paving stone that forms part of a kerb.
- You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party.1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act I, page 115:
- Gabriel often saw him on the streets, playing on the curbstone with other boys his age.1953, James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, New York, N.Y.: Knopf, →OCLC, part 2 (The Prayers of the Saints):
- Derived terms
- kerbstoned