Meaning:
A put-down aimed at an ageing woman who is dressed or made up of someone
much younger.
Background:
The term `mutton dressed as lamb' is first found in print in the journal of
social gossip that Mrs Frances Calvert compiled in 1811. Extracts from the
journal were published in 1911 as An Irish Beauty of the Regency:
Some one the other day asked the Prince of Wales at the Ancient Music
whether he did not think some girl pretty. `Girl!' answered he, `Girls are
not to my taste. I don't like lamb; but mutton dressed like lamb!'.
It was slightly preceded by an earlier version, in which woman were said to
be dressed `lamb-fashion'. An example of that appeared in the anonymous 1810
novel Splendid Follies:
Ewe mutton without garnish is a tough bite, to be sure; but methinks she's
dished herself off to day, lamb-fashion.
The `dressing' of food was previously the term for the preparation of the
item for cooking. The implication in `dressed as lamb' is that the woman had
prepared herself for a romantic encounter. `Mutton dressed as lamb' was
originally a disparaging description of a woman aiming to deceive men into
believing she was younger than she really was - it being an economic
necessity for a woman to marry while still of childbearing age.
Its current usage, while still disparaging, is of a woman who is apparently
deluded and thinks herself attractive in clothes usually worn by much those
much younger - the motivation having changed from notions of marriageability
to those of self-esteem.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Decades ago and where I grew up, village folks, especially women above certain
age, seemed particularly concious of being seen as mutton dressed as lamb.
Trying a garment, a birthday gift from their grown-up kids, for example, the
elderly would ask, in coy disapproval, "Isn't it too young for me?" They needed
to be reassured a million times before venturing out in their new clothes.
But time's changed and I have migrated. I live in an age and a place where a
woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. When dames dress up, the idea
that they need anyone's consent is absurd and offensive, and it might not be men
that they are trying to impress.
