The name of a street in London, mainly occupied by dealers in antique and imitation-antique furniture. Used attrib. in Wardour-street English, applied to the pseudo-archaic diction affected by some modern writers, esp. of historical novels.
1888. A. Ballantyne, in Longm. Mag., Oct., 585 (title), Wardour-Street English. Ibid., 589. This is not literary English of any date; this is Wardour-Street Early English—a perfectly modern article with a sham appearance of the real antique about it.
1918. Spectator, 20 April, 422/1. What we are obliged by our sincerity to describe as thoroughly bad, Wardour Street English. Ibid., 422/2. There are obvious reminiscences of … Ivanhoe in this piece of most unblushing but rather vivid Wardour Street.
