She Stoops to Conquer
Preserved but no longer current.
Goldsmith's comedy (1773) owes its existence to an incident which actually occurred to its author. When he was sixteen years of age a wag residing at Ardagh directed him, when passing through that village, to Squire Fetherstone's house as the village inn. The mistake was not discovered for some time, and then no one enjoyed it more heartily than Oliver himself.
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 “She Stoops to Conquer” mean?
Goldsmith's comedy (1773) owes its existence to an incident which actually occurred to its author. When he was sixteen years of age a wag residing at Ardagh directed him, when passing through that village, to Squire Fetherstone's house as the village inn. The mistake was not discovered for some time, and then no one enjoyed it more heartily than Oliver himself.
Is “She Stoops to Conquer” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.