{{Short description|American slang term}}{{Other uses|Lounge lizard (disambiguation)}} A '''lounge lizard''' is a man who frequents social establishments with the intention of seducing a woman with his flattery and deceptive charm.<ref>{{Cite web|title=On Language|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/08/magazine/on-language.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm|last=Safire|first=William|work=New York Times|accessdate=2012-06-28}}</ref> The term is reported to have arisen around 1915 in New York. A 1931 book described them as men "[in] the habit of lounging in different dance resorts from tea time on, on a chance of picking up a few dollars; or they might be habitués of the place or of an outer room, described as a 'lounge', for the purpose of picking up girls and women. In Europe, he subsequently evolved into what is now known as the gigolo."<ref>{{cite book|page=81|title=The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech|author=Irving Lewis Allen|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1995}}</ref>
== Examples == In the 1919 Charlie Chaplin film ''Sunnyside'' the term appears as a title card, describing a group of men reading newspapers in a hotel lobby.<ref>''Sunnyside'' at 20:30</ref>
In Buster Keaton's 1924 film ''Sherlock Jr.'', Keaton plays a projectionist at a movie theater where the movie showing is ''Hearts & Pearls or The Lounge Lizard's Lost Love''. The movie within a movie has a character who is good looking and well dressed who is romantically involved with a wealthy young woman.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sherlock Jr. |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/12044 |access-date=2025-11-14 |website=catalog.afi.com}} In Synopsis tab.</ref>
In the first story of Agatha Christie’s ''Parker Pyne Investigates'', ‘The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife’, the character of Claude Luttrell is referred to as a “lounge lizard”.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Christie |first=Agatha |title=Parker Pyne Investigates |publisher=Collins Mystery |year=1934 |isbn=978-0007154821 |edition=1st |location=London |pages=3-28}}</ref>
== See also == * ''Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards''
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Slang terms for men