Thursday word: barbermonger

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

barbermonger (bar-bur-MON-gur) - n. (obs. slang) a fop.


Literally, one who frequents the barbershop for frequent haircuts. This is early Tudor Slang -- the Historical Thesaurus to the OED gives 1605 as the only year of use for this -- and the only reason it appears in unabridged dictionaries at all is that it's used in King Lear. Possibly it's a Shakespeare coinage that never took off? Regardless, his usage makes the best example -- from act II, scene ii, as Kent confronts Oswald:

Draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger, draw!

---L.

Comments

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Nowt wrong with being a barbermonger. I think the culture of hanging around barber shops (which I only became aware of when I moved to London) is quite cool. There are certainly more disreputable places a young man could hang around.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

I think it's the foppishness more than the culture that's being objected to.

---L.

[med_cat]

Another great Shakespearean insult, and the etymology makes sense.