Pear-shaped

A European Pear.

The pear-shaped fruit of the cashew.

Pear-shaped is a slang term with at least three somewhat related meanings, all in reference to the shape of a pear, i.e. tapering towards the top and rounded at the bottom.

The oldest usage from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the most literal, a 1731 reference in a gardening dictionary comparing the shape of the fruit of the cashew, or avocado to that of a pear.

The comparison is less literal when the term is applied to people, where it means wide at the hips, a use that goes back to at least 1815, and one that can have either positive connotations (as in Venus figurines) or negative, depending upon the context.

In the 20th century, another, more abstract use of the term evolved. When said of someone's voice, "pear-shaped" means rich and sonorous. The OED dates this use to 1925, though a more recent example comes from The Thorn Birds. Colleen McCullough, the Australian author of the book, uses it to describe a change of the tone of the voice of Father Ralph, one of the major characters of the novel (the one played by Richard Chamberlain in the miniseries adaptation).

Another UK meaning

The third meaning is mostly limited to the United Kingdom. It is used to describe a situation that went awry, perhaps horribly wrong. A failed bank robbery, for example, could be said to have "gone pear-shaped".

The phrase seems to visualise the original plan as a perfect circle, but for some reason, this became distorted in the execution. Hence the outcome was more pear-shaped.

The origin for this use of the term is in dispute. The OED cites its origin as within the Royal Air Force; as of 2003 the earliest citation there is a quote in the 1983 book Air War South Atlantic (ISBN 028399035X). Others date it to the RAF in the 1940s, from pilots attempting to perform manoeuvres such as loops. These are apparently very difficult to form perfectly, and are usually noticeably distorted - i.e. pear-shaped.

Other theories include:

1. Some aircraft engines become distorted (pear-shaped) in the event of failure.
2. Early biplane aircraft buckled into a pear-shape when they crashed, especially stalling on take-off.
3. The phrase refers to the shape of a hot air balloon when it collapses.
4. In statistics, when the shape of a normal distribution widens, it becomes less of a spike and more of a dome-shaped distribution with flanged edges (like the top half of a pear). Thus extreme outcomes that were very unlikely before are now much more likely, and unexpected events may well occur.
5. It refers to the shape of a pregnant or obese woman.
6. It refers to the shape of the Earth, a (very slightly) lopsided ellipsoid.
7. In glass blowing it describes a failed circular blown vessel. If over heated the glass becomes too fluid and distorts under gravity as it cools, resulting in a pear-shaped vessel.

External links and references

• OED's entry for the term, part of a Wordhunt appeal
• Discussion about the term from an article posted to the Usenet newsgroup news://uk.culture.language.english
• A discussion at World Wide Words
• "Pear-shaped" at Everything2.com
• Expert etymology article at About.com
• Another expert etymology article at About.com