English

A person holding a handbag

Noun

handbag ‎(plural handbags)

1. (mainly Commonwealth) A small bag used by women (or sometimes by men) for carrying various small personal items.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 5, in The Celebrity:

     Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has given his Queen Louise on the stairway, and the light of the reflector fell full upon her.

2. (uncountable) An anthemic subgenre of house music of the late 1980s, often with booming vocals.
   • 2006, Andy Bennett, Barry Shank, Jason Toynbee, The Popular Music Studies Reader, Psychology Press (ISBN 9780415307109), page 102

     Who else would lug around that uptight feminine appendage, that burdensome emblem of adulthood — the handbag? ... The music genre had even come to be called 'handbag house'. As one clubber explained to  ...

Synonyms

• (bag used by women): purse (North American)
• (subgenre of house music): diva house, handbag house

Hyponyms

• man-bag, murse

Derived terms

• handbags at dawn
• hardbag
• man-bag

Translations

Verb

handbag ‎(third-person singular simple present handbags, present participle handbagging, simple past and past participle handbagged)

1. (Britain, transitive, humorous) Figuratively, to hit with a handbag; to attack verbally or subject to criticism (used originally of Margaret Thatcher).