wrong side of the blanket

Referring to being born to parents who were not married. Used in the phrase "born on the wrong side of the blanket." His parents eventually married, but that boy was born on the wrong side of the blanket.

wrong side of the blanket, born on the

Illegitimate. This term was current in the eighteenth century and may well be obsolete. Tobias Smollett used it in Humphry Clinker (1771): “My mother was an honest woman. I didn’t come in on the wrong side of the blanket.”

wrong side of the blanket

Illegitimacy. A child born out of wedlock was said to have been born on the wrong side of the blanket, as if being under the covers was a luxury to which only legitimate babies were entitled. Other obsolescent phrases for an illegitimate baby are “natural child” and “love child.”