The pre-Beatles meaning of “Lonely Hearts’ Club.”
“Mommy Dearest.” Can never be used as a compliment again.
“Nimrod” was probably a respectable name until Bugs Bunny used it to describe Elmer Fudd.
Twilight. That term used to be associated with dusk, dawn, someone’s ‘twilight years’, fantasy and mythology elements, and a myriad of other things I’m sure.
Now, though? OMG CHEESY VAMPIRE FICTION!!!1
I think you missed the point of the thread. The OP wasn’t asking about familiar words or phrases that changed meaning over time just from random language shifts, but about ones that changed meaning specifically because of their use in the title of a particular literary or entertainment work whose broader theme became associated with them in the popular mind.
In other words, it’s the connotations of the title that most people are now referencing when they use that word or phrase, not the original meaning of the word or phrase itself.
Here’s another example: “Fatal attraction” used to mean the allure of a love interest that was dangerous or unhealthy for any reason. Because of the Glenn Close movie, it now has very specific connotations of a violent unstable homewrecker trying to escalate an extramarital fling into a full-blown husband-steal, via murder if necessary.
A gentleman’s agreement meant a tacit agreement between two parties, but the movie made it a code word for a type of genteel antisemitism.
Ishtar was the name of an obscure (to Americans) Assyrian goddess; now it mean (unjustly) a terrible movie.
A batman was a military aide. Popular culture has made it mean something else.
“Superman” was a philosophical concept of Friedrich Nietsche.
“The Sopranos” is a perfect example. It used to be associated with singing. Since the HBO series, it’s associated with the Mafia.
Back in the day, being a ***Godfather ***was a completely wholesome occupation. Now, you can’t invoke the word without visions of machine guns and horse’s heads passing before your eyes…TRM
…edit…whoa! eerily appropriate cross-posting!
There was a book about Charles Comiskey, the owner of the Chicago White Sox, called “Commy”. That wouldn’t be a good nickname to have later in the 20th century.
Stepford was an obscure town in Connecticut that Ira Levin used for his book about replacing wives with robots. Now it’s an adjective meanuing “robotic.”