Word.ws English Dictionary

dorothy dixer

dorothy dixer is the alternative letter-case form of Dorothy Dixer.

Noun capitalized: Dorothy Dixer

Dorothy Dixer (plural Dorothy Dixers)

  1. (Australian) A question asked of a minister by a member of their own party, to give the minister the opportunity to promote the government's work, criticise the opposition, etc.
    • Betraying not a sign of the general mayhem he had just created, he answered a Dorothy Dixer about television violence.2002, Don Watson, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM, page 273
    • On both sides of the chamber, Question Time became highly programmed. This led on the Government side to questions, almost without exception, being Dorothy Dixers of the worst kind.[…]The total domination of this sort of Dorothy Dixer under the Keating Government reduced the use of Question Time...2006, Julian Disney, J. R. Nethercote, The House on Capital Hill: Parliament, Politics, and Power in the National Capital, page 226
    Synonyms:
    dixer

Synonyms of dorothy dixer

Forms of dorothy dixer

pluraldorothy dixers
pluralDorothy Dixers
alternative formDorothy Dix
alternative formdorothy dixer

Origin of dorothy dixer

Named after US advice columnist Dorothy Dix (1870–1951), who reputedly invented some of the more interesting readers’ questions she answered, + -er.

Questions about dorothy dixer

What does dorothy dixer mean?
Dorothy dixer means a question asked of a minister by a member of their own party, to give the minister the opportunity to promote the government's work, criticise the opposition, etc.
What is dorothy dixer the alternative letter-case form of?
Dorothy dixer is the alternative letter-case form of Dorothy Dixer.
What part of speech is dorothy dixer?
Dorothy dixer is a noun.
What is the plural of dorothy dixer?
The plural of dorothy dixer is dorothy dixers.

Words near dorothy dixer in the dictionary

  1. Dorothy
  2. Dorothy bag
  3. Dorothy bags
  4. Dorothy Crater
  5. Dorothy Dix
  6. dorothy dixer
  7. dorothy dixers
  8. Dorothy Dixes
  9. Dorothy dollar
  10. Dorothy door
  11. Dorothy doors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dorothy dixer (page history and authors); Dorothy Dixer (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: EN-AU ck1 Dorothy Dixer.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dorothy dixer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dorothy_dixer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.