bear garden
Preserved but no longer current.
This place is a perfect bear garden — that is, full of confusion, noise, tumult, and quarrels. In Elizabethan and Stuart times the gardens where bears were kept and baited for public amusement were famous for all sorts of riotous disorder.
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 “bear garden” mean?
This place is a perfect bear garden — that is, full of confusion, noise, tumult, and quarrels. In Elizabethan and Stuart times the gardens where bears were kept and baited for public amusement were famous for all sorts of riotous disorder.
Is “bear garden” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.