oven dodger
- noun
- Informal
:
evitador de cocinar
- She admits to being a bit of an oven dodger and relies heavily on ready meals.
Examples
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He’s an oven dodger who always suggests eating out instead of preparing a meal.
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As an oven dodger, he never volunteers to cook at house parties.
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My brother is such an oven dodger!
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Are you an oven dodger too?
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As an oven dodger, he never volunteers to cook during family gatherings.
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She is known as an oven dodger because she prefers takeout over cooking at home.
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Being an oven dodger, he often suggests restaurants instead of making dinner himself.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound combines 'oven' (a cooking appliance) with 'dodger' (one who avoids something), so the meaning 'someone who avoids cooking/using the oven' is directly inferable from the parts. The '-dodger' pattern is productive in English (e.g., 'tax dodger', 'draft dodger'), making this compositional and accessible to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Oven dodger may come from a simple picture: someone who literally dodges the oven, stepping back to avoid the heat and the cooking work. So dodger here shows avoiding, and the phrase means 'a person who avoids cooking', especially at home.
