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pillow fight

10 1.0
A playful game where people hit each other with pillows
  • noun
  • /ˈpɪloʊ faɪt/
translation icon : pelea de almohadas
  • But we had a pillow fight!
  • start a pillow fight
  • naked pillow fight

I'm going to pretend I was bleeding when we had a pillow fight.

Examples

  • And one time at band camp, we weren't supposed to have pillow fights but we had a pillow fight, and it was so much fun.

  • At home with the kids he tries to organise pillow fights.

  • Are you all doing a pillow fight?

  • Oh, you want a pillow fight, do you?

  • We're not in a pillow fight, Joe.

  • There were three ladies, and they had an epic pillow fight.

  • Oh, we've just been having a little pillow fight.

  • When Mrs. Claus arrived, they were in the middle of a pillow fight.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • And we weren't supposed to have pillow fights?

    Fiction book (1999)
  • Last night we had a big pillow fight that lasted more than an hour.

Synonyms

mud fight
vspillow fight
  • Informal
1 2.5

People play by throwing or smearing mud at each other

involves hitting others with soft dry bedding in a playful game

How Rough

brawl
60 4.6
to fight
1.0
fisticuffs
  • Archaic
9.5
pillow fight
10 1.0

Surface Forms

pillow fight singular
pillow fights plural

Morphology

pillow + fight

The meaning 'a playful fight using pillows' is directly and compositionally derived from 'pillow' (soft head pad) + 'fight' (physical contest); the constituent meanings combine in the straightforward compound noun pattern. This construction is cross-linguistically common and follows an obvious English noun-noun composition, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Pillow fight comes from a simple picture: people hitting each other with pillows at sleepovers, making feathers fly and laughter. So pillow fight today means a 'playful' 'fight' using pillows.