the town bicycle
- idiom
- Offensive
:
persona promiscua
- Ever since she started dating again, some people began to unfairly call her the town bicycle.
Examples
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Rumors and judgmental whispers referred to her as the town bicycle after her high school relationships.
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He resented the label of the town bicycle that the cruel gossip had given him.
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She is often called the town bicycle.
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Everyone knows that Mark is the town bicycle.
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After his many relationships, the local community unfairly labeled him as the town bicycle, spreading rumors about his promiscuity.
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The constant gossip around her has led to her being unfairly referred to as the town bicycle in our small town.
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Following her breakups, some people in our circle jokingly nicknamed her the town bicycle due to her well-known past dating history.
Synonyms
1
9.9
An insulting name for a person, often a woman, who many people think has sex with many others
A person who has had romantic or sexual relationships with many people
A person in a town who has many sexual partners, said to shame them
Antonyms
How Promiscuous
Surface Forms
Morphology
the + town + bicycle
The derogatory sense 'a person regarded as promiscuous' cannot be derived from the literal meanings of 'town' (a settlement) and 'bicycle' (a two-wheeled vehicle); there is no obvious compositional relation. The metaphorical or pragmatic association (a bicycle being 'ridden' by many) is culture-specific and idiomatic, so a B1 learner who knows the words but hasn't seen the phrase would very likely not infer the meaning.
Etymology
The town bicycle may come from the simple image of a bicycle in a small town that many people ride. If many people have ridden the same bike it looks worn and used, so the phrase came to mean 'someone many people have slept with' or 'promiscuous'.