411 REFERENCE · Wiktionary
Great Wen
Reference material by Wiktionary contributors. This retains its source identity and is not 411 news reporting.
English
The +
Etymology
UK 1820s. From en great very big + en wen a cyst on the skin. Coined by William Cobbett.
Proper noun
Great Wen 1
en UK derogatory informal en @derogatory name for:London caplc cc/England *and the c:also/United Kingdom.
en 1830 w:William Cobbett w:Rural Rides But, what is to be the fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called, by the silly coxcombs of the press, 'the metropolis of the empire?'
en 1962 C. T. Smith J. B. Mitchell The South-East Midlands Great Britain: Geographical Essays 135 London is of vital importance to the communications, industry and towns of the south-east Midlands as a whole, though the proximity of 'the Great Wen' may be partly responsible for the fact that no town within it has a population of more than 130,000.
en 2014-06-02 Let the Great Wen get greater still D.K w:The Economist https://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2014/06/growing-london https://web.archive.org/web/20170729055645/http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2014/06/growing-london 29 July 2017
Anagrams
en aeegnrtw gawntree