Meanings
- humorousslangEmpty seats at a theater, circus, etc., corresponding to tickets that the venue failed to sell.
We learned to despise the 'Wood' family, that is, the empty seats. We lived off the Scotch eggs the landladies put out for late supper, after the show.
2012, Angela Carter, Wise Children, page 772 more examples
In spite of their efforts to avoid it, members of the "Wood Family" were constantly in evidence. In the slang of the circus, the phrase simply meant empty seats.
1958, Reginald Taylor, Circus Triumphant, page 177[…] we trucked last week's show sixteen miles to the coastal village of Lynton for a single performance in the village hall, a performance attended largely by the “Wood Family”—theatrical gallows humor for the rows of empty wooden seats.
2010, Ivor Noël Hume, A Passion for the Past: The Odyssey of a Transatlantic Archaeologist
Origin
A pun on wood, the material that may be seen when benches are empty.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Wood family. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Wood%20family
“Wood family.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Wood%20family. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Wood family,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Wood%20family.
Source: Wood family on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.