balmorality

plural balmoralities

1. alternativecountableuncountableAlternative form of Balmorality.

   Would I injure your admirable balmorality, my dear friend ?

   1869, Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, Tom Taylor, Punch - Volumes 56-57, page iii

   2 more examples

   Modesty forbade Fanny to describe her fellow-passengers' travelling costumes, for they were all gentlemen; but she recommended her own and little Ada's outfits to the ladies: a balmoral skirt (' balmorality' raged in the New World as well as in the Old); as many calico dresses as possible (but you had to remove the hoops, she warned, for crinolines with stiffeners in them would hardly permit a lady to get through the door of a western stage-coach, much less sit at ease in it for eight hours at a stretch); waterproof cloaks ; huge sunbonnets, with voluminous green veils ; buckskin gloves and stout, calf-length boots.

   1963, Blackwood's Magazine - Volume 293, page 228

   Most recently, Ronald 1 Black refers to Highlanders' experience of 'a ghastly 200 year cycle of Macphcrson's Ossian, Calvinism, landlordism, emigration, clearance, famine, cannon-fodder, balmorality, land struggle, educational deracination and population drift' (1998:3).

   2000, Gordon McCoy, Maolcholaim Scott, Gaelic Identities, →ISBN, page 34

plural Balmoralities · alternative balmorality

1. countableuncountableA superficial idealization of Scottish culture, especially the popularity engendered by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's enthusiasm for Scotland.

   It would rid us of our obsession with tartanry and Balmorality, and replace the kailyard fantasies with a much deeper cultural grounding.

   2013, Gary West, Voicing Scotland: Folk, Culture, Nation, →ISBN, page 164

   4 more examples

   The most obvious way is to buy a home in the country, or at the very least to know how to behave during a weekend in the country; and in order to play thepart, to get kitted out in green wellies, jackets, thick-soled shoes and Viyella shirts, all in a fawning copy of the Balmorality of the modern Royals.

   1991, John R. Short, Imagined Country: Environment, Culture, and Society, →ISBN, page 74

   Barring the castle-building and Bayreuth fantasies of the mad Ludwig in Bavaria, there is nothing like it, and Balmorality has had a longer and more profound impact than the architectural dreamings of Wagner's patron, now emptied of their Wittelsbach inhabitants.

   2000, Ian Mitchell, On the Trail of Queen Victoria in the Highlands, →ISBN, page xxvi

   At Balmoral Castle, on the banks of the Dee, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert recreated Scott's world with a kilt uniform of dubious provenance, a 'Balmorality' of Highland informality and ethical equality between master and servant (extended to quite scandalous degrees in the relationship between the Queen and John Brown), but all within the context of laird authority.

   2010, Tristram Hunt, Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City, →ISBN, page ii

   Although Edward loved to dress up in a kilt and have a 'blaw' on the bagpipes, he was no upholder of the great and austere tradition of 'Balmorality', which, since the castle's reconstruction by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, had come to define the essence of the British royal family.

   2010, Denys Blakeway, The Last Dance: 1936: The Year Our Lives Changed, →ISBN

2. countableuncountableAn act inspired by Balmorality.

   What has come over them all ? Is this a bad day with the Balmoralities ?

   1888, Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, Tom Taylor, Punch - Volume 95, page 149