- skip - Brewer’s

Tasselled Gentleman

.

A fop, a man dressed in fine clothes. A corruption of Tercel-gentle by a double blunder: (1) Tercel, erroneously supposed to be tassel, and to refer to the tags and tassels worn by men on their dress; and (2) gentle corrupted into gentlemen, according to the Irish exposition of the verse, “The gentle shall inherit the earth.”

 

previous entry · index · next entry

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

previous entry · index · next entry

Tarpaulins or Tars
Tarpeian Rock
Tarred
Tarring and Feathering
Tarrinzean Field
Tartan Plaid
Tartar
Tartaros (Greek), Tartarus (Latin)
Tartuffe
Tassel-Gentle
Tasselled Gentleman
Tatianists
Tatterdemalion
Tattoo
Tattoo (To)
Tau
Taurus [the Bull]
Tawdry
Tawny (The)
Taylor
Taylor’s Institute