apple-pie bed
Preserved but no longer current.
A bed in which the sheets are so folded that a person cannot get his legs down; perhaps a corruption of "a nappe-pli bed," from the Fr. nappe phee, a folded sheet. Also incorrectly used by schoolboys to describe a bed into which a quantity of strange objects have been piled to discomfit the occupant.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “apple-pie bed” mean?
A bed in which the sheets are so folded that a person cannot get his legs down; perhaps a corruption of "a nappe-pli bed," from the Fr. nappe phee, a folded sheet. Also incorrectly used by schoolboys to describe a bed into which a quantity of strange objects have been piled to discomfit the occupant.
Is “apple-pie bed” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.