dirty stop out

anfrony

anfrony

Member
Montpellier, France
English - United States
Hello,

One of my English friends decided, as is not uncommon, to use an expression I've never heard before. Unfortunately she's done a rather poor job of explaining exactly what it means, so though I feel there is something like the shape of a meaning forming before me that I can almost grasp, I am alas still in the dark.

The expression is "dirty stop out". I can't help but wonder if this is a typically British expression, but perhaps some other American English speakers out their have heard it or even used it. I'm also curious as to whether or not (assuming this is a BE expression) there's an AE equivalent.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
 
    • It's an expression common in BrE.
    If my flatmate came home at 5 a.m. smelling of alcohol, I might say 'You dirty stopout!'
    It means that someone (male or female) has been out all night, presumably up to no good.
     
    A very familiar expression in BE. A stop-out is somebody who comes home late at night. It should be hyphenated. Adding the dirty is just making it a more abusive term, suggesting that the stop-out has been behaving inappropriately, probably with loose women (or loose men if the stop-out is female).
     
    Okay. Thank you both. That makes sense, but I can't think of what we would say, or if we'd say anything at all. At least I can't think of a noun. I'm sure we might tease, saying things like, "Long night?" or "What've you been up to?" but nothing quite so specific. Here's to hoping another American English speaker might have an idea.
     
    I'd never heard "stop-out" before, and I don't think there's any single AE word or short phrase meaning "person who has been out till all hours probably engaging in something disreputable". At least, none that I'm familiar with.
     
    In American English the phrase "walk of shame" is sometimes used to label the guilty action of someone who has come home at six a.m. wearing last night's clothes and probably having had sex, God-knows-where. The British also have a phrase "dirty week-end" suggesting spending the weekend having sex. So adding the word "dirty" to "stop-out" suggests that love was made. The use of "stop" in BE can often be translated to AE by the word "stay". So, you see, if we had a close equivalent to "stop-out" in AE, it would be "stay-out", but AE does not have that. We would just say, "Marvin, why did you stay out all night?"
     
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