English

A Dagwood sandwich

Alternative forms

• Dagwood, Dagwood Sandwich

Noun

Dagwood sandwich ‎(plural Dagwood sandwiches)

1. (informal) An exceptionally thick sandwich made with numerous layers of various meats, cheeses, vegetables, and condiments.
   • 1980, Arthur Asa Berger, Television As An instrument of Terror, ISBN 9781412835657, p. 76 (Google preview):

     The kind of sandwich he made famous, the Dagwood sandwich, is a hodgepodge of leftovers in the refrigerator all wedged in between two slices of bread.

   • 1999 Sept. 7, Tom Zeller, "Nutrition: When Refrigerator Raiders Lose Control," New York Times (retrieved 19 April 2014):

     Everyone gets the late-night munchies now and then, whether for rocky road ice cream or a Dagwood sandwich of salami, pickles and deli Swiss on rye.

   • 2012 Nov. 1, Brian Truitt, "Dagwood runs for president in longtime 'Blondie' strip," USA Today (retrieved 19 April 2014):

     And who wouldn't like to think of the Dagwood sandwich somewhere on the White House menu?

2. (figuratively, by extension) A thick stack of flat objects or a complicated melange of diverse components or ingredients.
   • 1956 Feb. 27, "Medicine: Don't-Give-a-Damn Pills," Time (retrieved 19 April 2014):

     As one of Groucho Marx's writers told it: an unemployed actor was interrupted at breakfast by his wife carrying a Dagwood sandwich of unpaid bills.

   • 1984 Aug. 28, Erik Sandberg-Diment, "Personal Computers: Awkward Junior Has Growing Pains," New York Times (retrieved 19 April 2014):

     [T]o use the full 512K theoretically available, one will have a computer carrying a Dagwood sandwich of expansion attachments on one of its sides.

   • 2013 Dec. 18, Jim Geraghty, "The Week So Far: A Dagwood Sandwich of Bad News for Obamacare," National Review Online (retrieved 19 April 2014):

     Today’s Morning Jolt is just a Dagwood sandwich of bad news for Obamacare, piled higher and higher.

References

• Dagwood sandwich at OneLook Dictionary Search