Frenchman

Done like a Frenchman, turn and turn again (1 Henry VI., iii. 4). The French are usually satirised by mediæval English authors as a fickle, wavering nation. Dr. Johnson says he once read a treatise the object of which was to show that a weathercock is a satire on the word Gallus (a Gaul or cock).

Frenchman. The nickname of a Frenchman is “Crapaud” (q.v.), “Johnny” or “Jean,” “Mossoo,” “Robert Macaire” (q.v.); but of a Parisian “Grenouille” (Frog). (See Brissotins.)

They stand erect, they dance wheneʹer they walk;

Monkeys in action, parroquets in talk.”

Gay: Epistle III.

French Canadian, “Jean Baptiste.”

French Peasantry, “Jacques Bonhomme.”

French Reformers, “Brissotins” (q.v.).

· ·

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.