porkpie hat
1
7.3
- noun
- /ˈpɔrkˌpaɪ hæt/
:
sombrero porkpie
- Jim looked stylish in his new porkpie hat while walking through the city.
- wearing a porkpie hat
- man in a porkpie hat
Examples
-
He carried a pistol in a shoulder holster and wore a small brown porkpie hat tilted back off his forehead.
Fiction book (1990) -
Luster bows deeply, then disappears into the crowd in his torn raincoat and porkpie hat.
Fiction book (2000) -
The bear with the porkpie hat.
-
This nice porkpie hat or the lovely picture hat the missus give me?
-
He went out with phone booths and the porkpie hat.
-
Barris, now in a hotel terrycloth bathrobe and a porkpie hat, sits at a desk and types manically.
Fiction book (2002) -
Because just then, my father, in his bulky surplus Army parka and porkpie hat, was already crazed and out on the field tackling that last man himself.
Fiction book (1990) -
He was wearing the same brown suit and the same brown porkpie hat he'd worn the day he and his partner had questioned me regarding Amber's death, and he emanated the same air of tired professionalism that had struck me then.
Fiction book (1990) -
The actor was easily recognizable by his distinctive porkpie hat during the film premiere.
-
At the vintage fair, he proudly wore a classic porkpie hat that caught everyone's attention.
Synonyms
1
8.1
A man's hat with a low flat top and a small turned-up brim
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituent 'porkpie' is itself a lexicalized name for a particular hat shape, so combining it with 'hat' yields a directly compositional meaning (a hat of the porkpie style). There is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift in meaning—the phrase simply names a hat type—so a learner who knows both constituents will understand it.
Etymology
The noun porkpie hat comes from an old British food called a pork pie, a small round pie with a low, flat top. Hat makers copied that low, flat shape when they made a hat with a short brim, so people began calling it a porkpie hat.