Quote
1. Quote - Listen to the quote and guess what the slang means.
“I’m starting to have fun with being a girly girl now. Of course, I still sleep in a wife-beater and men’s boxers.”
Actress Eliza Dushku, talking about her pajamas.
Definition
1. Definition - Study the definition.
a sleeveless athletic shirt; a sleeveless undershirt
2. Use - Learn how the slang is used.
A wife-beater is a type of sleeveless men’s athletic shirt. They are meant to be worn as undershirts, or when exercising, but sometimes you see photographs of celebrities like Brad Pitt or Heath Ledger out on the town in wife-beaters.
The expression wife-beater can be offensive to some people. The term comes from the idea that men who abuse women are low-class and sit at home drinking cheap beer and wearing stained, sleeveless shirts. In the movie Natural Born Killers, Rodney Dangerfield wears a wife-beater and does nothing but drink beer and abuse his family.
Examples
1. Examples - Hear some example sentences.
“He wears a dirty wife-beater all day, every day.”