Dorrit

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The gentle, self-sacrificing young woman who is the central figure of Charles Dickens's novel about debt and imprisonment in Victorian England
2. A character in Charles Dickens's 1857 novel, the devoted daughter born in a debtors' prison who later inherits a fortune
3. The title heroine of a Dickens novel, known for her quiet devotion to her family and her life near the Marshalsea prison

Etymology: Amy Dorrit, the heroine of Charles Dickens's 1857 novel "Little Dorrit," gets her name from the novel's plot rather than from any older word. Dickens published the book in serial parts between 1855 and 1857, and it is set largely in the Marshalsea debtors' prison, where Amy is born and grows up. Her surname is a coinage that Dickens shaped to suit the story, and it has no recorded history as an English word before his novel. Because "Dorrit" was invented as a proper name, its meaning is tied to the character rather than to any dictionary sense. Readers who know the novel use the name as a shorthand for a devoted, self-sacrificing daughter who keeps her family afloat while living inside the prison walls.