the big gooseberry season
Preserved but no longer current.
A mid- Victorian phrase applied to the dull time in journalism when Parliament was not sitting, the Law Courts were up, and nobody was in Town, when the old-fashioned editor published accounts of giant gooseberries, sea-serpents, vegetable marrows, sweet peas, just to fill up his paper.
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 “the big gooseberry season” mean?
A mid- Victorian phrase applied to the dull time in journalism when Parliament was not sitting, the Law Courts were up, and nobody was in Town, when the old-fashioned editor published accounts of giant gooseberries, sea-serpents, vegetable marrows, sweet peas, just to fill up his paper.
Is “the big gooseberry season” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.