Word.ws English Dictionary

all my eye and Betty Martin

/ɔːl maɪ ˈaɪ ən(d)ˌbɛtɪ ˈmɑːtɪn/

all my eye and Betty Martin noun: rubbish, humbug.

Noun

all my eye and Betty Martin (uncountable)

  1. (dated) rubbish, humbug
    • All my eye and Betty Martin, thought I, I will have no more truck with you.1881 Thomas Bastard, The Autobiography of Cockney Tom, at Project Gutenberg Australia
    • Oh, that's all my eye and Betty Martin! Nobody believes that, I should hope.1893 November, R. D. Blackmore, “Perlycross”, in Macmillan's Magazine, volume LXIX, page 83
    Synonyms:
    all my eye

all my eye and Betty Martin meaning in Bengali

all my eye and Betty Martin in Bengali

বাজে কথা, প্রতারণা

Synonyms of all my eye and Betty Martin

Origin of all my eye and Betty Martin

In Britain during the 1700s, the phrase was a common claim of dismissal (similar to 'nonsense', or 'hogwash'), or a way to declare disbelief of an absurdity. It possibly originated as the punch line of a joke (though this is likely a folk etymology). Most variations of the joke involve a British sailor visiting Italy. He overhears a Latin prayer, "Ah! [Da] mihi, beate Martine" (which translates to "Ah! Grant to me, blessed Martin", referring to St. Martin). The sailor mishears the prayer, and later uses the phrase as "All my eye and Betty Martin".

Questions about all my eye and Betty Martin

What does all my eye and Betty Martin mean?
All my eye and Betty Martin means rubbish, humbug.
What is all my eye and Betty Martin in Bengali?
All my eye and Betty Martin in Bengali is বাজে কথা, প্রতারণা. See All my eye and Betty Martin meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is all my eye and Betty Martin?
All my eye and Betty Martin is a noun.
How do you pronounce all my eye and Betty Martin?
All my eye and Betty Martin is pronounced /ɔːl maɪ ˈaɪ ən(d)ˌbɛtɪ ˈmɑːtɪn/ (UK).

Words near all my eye and Betty Martin in the dictionary

  1. all mops and brooms
  2. all motion and no meat
  3. all mouth and no trousers
  4. all mouth and trousers
  5. all my eye
  6. all my eye and Betty Martin
  7. all night
  8. all nighter
  9. all nighters
  10. all o' y'all
  11. all of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: all my eye and Betty Martin (page history and authors); all my eye and Betty Martin (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-all my eye and Betty Martin.wav.

Cite this entry: “all my eye and Betty Martin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/all_my_eye_and_betty_martin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.