"Longest word in English The identity of the longest word in English depends upon the definition of what constitutes a word in the English language, as well as how length should be compared. In addition to words derived naturally from the language's roots (without any known intentional invention), English allows new words to be formed by coinage and construction; place names may be considered words; technical terms may be arbitrarily long. Length may be understood in terms of orthography and number of written letters, or (less commonly) phonology and the number of phonemes. The longest word in any of the"
"(1676, published 1677), and Lord Foppington in ""The Relapse"" (1696) by John Vanbrugh. Vanbrugh planned ""The Relapse"" around particular actors at the Drury Lane Theatre, including Colley Cibber, who played Lord Foppington. A fop is also referred to as a ""beau"", as in the Restoration comedies ""The Beaux' Stratagem"" (1707) by George Farquhar, ""The Beau Defeated"" (1700) by Mary Pix, or the real-life Beau Nash, master of ceremonies at Bath, or Regency celebrity Beau Brummell. The sexual recklessness of ""beau"" may imply homosexuality. Shakespeare's ""King Lear"" contains the word, in the general sense of a fool, and before him Thomas"
"first performed around 1600. At the time, the word had entered the English language to mean a small type of fish with a gaping mouth - from the vantage point of the actor playing Hamlet, set on a stage raised around 5 feet from the ground, the sea of upturned faces may have looked like wide-mouthed fish. They were known to misbehave and are commonly believed to have thrown food such as fruit and nuts at characters they did not like, although there is no evidence of this. They would watch the plays from the cramped pits with sometimes over"
"in 1440, and for several centuries just meant a fool of any kind; the Oxford English Dictionary notes first use with the meaning of ""one who is foolishly attentive to and vain of his appearance, dress, or manners; a dandy, an exquisite"" in 1672. An early example of the usage is in the restoration drama ""The Soldier's Fortune"", in which a woman dismisses a potential suitor by saying ""Go, you are a fop."" The fop was a stock character in English literature and especially comic drama, as well as satirical prints. He is a ""man of fashion"" who overdresses, aspires"
"Fop Fop became a pejorative term for a foolish man excessively concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th-century England. Some of the many similar alternative terms are ""coxcomb"", ""fribble"", ""popinjay"" (meaning 'parrot'), ""fashion-monger"", and ""ninny"". ""Macaroni"" was another term, of the 18th century, more specifically concerned with fashion. A modern-day fop may also be a reference to a foolish person who is excessively concerned about his clothing, luxuries, minor details, refined language and leisurely hobbies. He is generally incapable of engaging in conversations, activities or thoughts without the idealism of aesthetics or pleasures. The word ""fop"" is first recorded"
"century. The ""Oxford Dictionary"" suggests that it may have originally been a slang term for something that a con artist or magician manipulated to make appearances different from reality and gradually changed its meaning to refer to any ‘piece of magicians' apparatus’. The word itself may be an approximate anagram of the word magic. Another possible origin is that it may have come into use among the gaming tables, where it came to refer to ""a device used for making a fair game crooked"". The term first appeared in American newspapers in the 1910s and 1920s. In marketing, the use"
"tried to win. By winning, the shills encourage others to try — ""It's easy, if you know how to spot it."" At one time a popular scam, it was much practised by Gypsies, a circumstance alluded to by Shakespeare in ""Antony and Cleopatra"" (iv. 12): ""Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose, Beguiled me to the very heart of loss."" Shakespeare also mentions ""Fast and Loose"" in ""King John"" and in ""Love's Labors Lost."" This phrase is often attributed to Shakespeare, but according to the OED, first appears as the title of an epigram in a popular miscellany"
"from 1557. The colloquial expression to ""play fast and loose"" — to act or live recklessly or thoughtlessly — has come into our common usage from Shakespeare. Sometime in the 18th or 19th century, the scam was resurrected with a new method — one which used a continuous loop of string. The scam artists who worked the docks would often play this con on a barrel top for the sailors. This new version of the game was called ""On the Barrelhead,"" from the phrase, “Put your money on the Barrelhead.” It was also known as ""The Figure Eight"" and later"
"and high-heeled boots. Fop Fop became a pejorative term for a foolish man excessively concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th-century England. Some of the many similar alternative terms are ""coxcomb"", ""fribble"", ""popinjay"" (meaning 'parrot'), ""fashion-monger"", and ""ninny"". ""Macaroni"" was another term, of the 18th century, more specifically concerned with fashion. A modern-day fop may also be a reference to a foolish person who is excessively concerned about his clothing, luxuries, minor details, refined language and leisurely hobbies. He is generally incapable of engaging in conversations, activities or thoughts without the idealism of aesthetics or pleasures. The word ""fop"""
"""toast"", which means ""sliced bread singed by heat"", derives from the Latin ""torrere"", ""to burn"". The first reference to toast in print is in a recipe for Oyle Soppys (flavoured onions stewed in a gallon of stale beer and a pint of oil) that dates from 1430. In the 1400s and 1500s, toast was discarded or eaten after it was used as a flavouring for drinks. In the 1600s, toast was still thought of as something to be put into drinks. In his 1602 play ""The Merry Wives of Windsor"", Shakespeare gives Falstaff the line: ""Go fetch me a quart"
"made of expensive materials such as velvet trimmed with yellow. Shakespearean fool The Shakespearean fool is a recurring character type in the works of William Shakespeare. Shakespearean fools are usually clever peasants or commoners that use their wits to outdo people of higher social standing. In this sense, they are very similar to the real fools, and jesters of the time, but their characteristics are greatly heightened for theatrical effect. The ""groundlings"" (theatre-goers who were too poor to pay for seats and thus stood on the 'ground' in the front by the stage) that frequented the Globe Theatre were more"
"after an absurdly pretentious dialogue between the pedantic schoolmaster Holofernes and his friend Sir Nathaniel. The two pedants converse in a mixture of Latin and florid English. When Moth, a witty young servant, enters, Costard says of the pedants: Flap-dragon was a game which involved trying to eat hot raisins from a bowl of burning brandy. The word has been used by adherents of the Baconian theory who believe Shakespeare's plays were written in steganographic cypher by Francis Bacon. In 1905 Isaac Hull Platt argued that it was an anagram for ""hi ludi, F. Baconis nati, tuiti orbi"", Latin for"
"although there is no evidence that he acted with cowardice, he was temporarily stripped of his knighthood. Fastolf appears in ""Henry VI, Part 1"" in which he is portrayed as an abject coward. In the"" First Folio ""his name is spelled ""Falstaffe"", so Shakespeare may have directly appropriated the spelling of the name he used in the earlier play. In a further comic double meaning, the name implies impotence. It has been suggested that the dissolute writer Robert Greene may also have been an inspiration for the character of Falstaff. This theory was first proposed in 1930 and has recently"
"likely etymological origin is a combination of two older words, the Dutch ""krappen"": to pluck off, cut off, or separate; and the Old French ""crappe"": siftings, waste or rejected matter (from the medieval Latin ""crappa,"" chaff). In English, it was used to refer to chaff, and also to weeds or other rubbish. Its first application to bodily waste, according to the ""Oxford English Dictionary"", appeared in 1846 under a reference to a ""crapping ken,"" or a privy, where ""ken"" means a house. Thomas Crapper Thomas Crapper (baptised 28 September 1836; died 27 January 1910) was an English plumber and who"
"Burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word derives from the Italian ', which, in turn, is derived from the Italian ' – a joke, ridicule or mockery. Burlesque overlaps in meaning with caricature, parody and travesty, and, in its theatrical sense, with extravaganza, as presented during the Victorian era. ""Burlesque"" has been used in English in this literary and theatrical sense since the late 17th century. It has been applied retrospectively to works of Chaucer"
"fellow"". By the 19th century, a new and pejorative meaning arose, ""one inclined to uncivil or loutish behaviour""—hence ""churlish"" (cf. the pejorative sense of the term ""boor"", whose original meaning of ""country person"" or ""farmer"" is preserved in Dutch and Afrikaans ""boer"" and German ""Bauer"", although the latter has its own pejorative connotations such as those prompting its use as the name for the chess piece known in English as a pawn. Also the word villain - derived from Anglo-French and Old French and originally meaning ""farmhand"" - had gone through a similar process to reach its present meaning). The"
"then kicked out. It is attested that an ancient form of hopscotch was played by Roman children, but the first recorded references to the game in the English-speaking world date to the late 17th century, usually under the name ""scotch-hop"" or ""scotch-hopper(s)"". A manuscript ""Book of Games"" compiled between 1635 and 1672 by Francis Willughby refers to 'Scotch Hopper‥. They play with a piece of tile or a little flat piece of lead, upon a boarded floor, or any area divided into oblong figures like boards'. In Poor Robin's Almanack for 1677, the game is referred to as ""Scotch-hoppers"". The"
"been in use; Edmond Malone claimed that it appeared in a work that has since been lost—Richard Eedes's Latin play ""Caesar Interfectus"" of 1582. The phrase had also occurred in another play by Shakespeare, ""The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixth, with the Whole Contention betweene the two Houses Lancaster and Yorke"" of 1595, which is the earliest printed version of ""Henry VI, Part 3"". It has been argued that the phrase can be interpreted as a curse or warning. One theory states that the historic Caesar adapted the words"
"earliest recorded instances of ""fuck,"" predating any English language forms but preceded in the Scots language by the makar William Dunbar (Oxford English Dictionary entry.) A complete version of the play was printed in 1602, see external links for an edition of the text. In this extract Diligence meets the Pauper, who begins his complaint, including the practice of the parish priest claiming livestock at funerals which was mentioned in the 1540 interlude, (Lines 1954-2028); DILIGENCE:<br>Swyith begger bogill, haist the away,<br> Thow art over pert to spill our play. PAUPER:<br>I wil not gif for al ȝour play worth an sowis"
"slang for bad workmanship.. The etymology of the bodger and botcher (poor workmanship) are well recorded from Shakespeare onwards, and now the two terms are synonymous. In Samuel Johnson's dictionary of the English language published in 1766, the Shakespearean use of the word ""bodged"", means to ""boggle"". According to Johnson ""boggle"" is another word for hesitate. Other definitions of the word bodge taken from Robert Hunter's ""The encyclopædic dictionary"", suggest that it could also be a corruption of ""botch"", meaning ""patch"". or a measurement of capacity equivalent to half a peck - equal to . There is a hypothesis that"
"According to tradition the young Shakespeare wrote a lampoon of Lucy at some point in the mid 1580s. This either led to an attempt to prosecute him or to his prudent departure from the area. There are versions of a local ballad mocking Lucy's name and another suggesting his wife was unfaithful. Both were written down by collectors in the late 17th century. The former turns ""Lucy"" into ""lousy"", A parliament member, a justice of peace,<br> At home a poor scarecrow, at London an ass,<br> If lousy is Lucy as some folks miscall it<br> Then Lucy is lousy whatever befall"
"from the Plantagenet era near the end of the 12th century, ”Costard”. This apple was an all-purpose apple that was occasionally used in cider and remained wildly popular until at least the 19th century: as an illustration, a slang term for the head or brain in the works of Shakespeare is ”costard”, a word a man who spent his life traveling back and forth between his wife in Warwickshire and the theatre in London would have known very well; indeed Shakespeare named one of his clowns after the product in the case of ""Love's Labour's Lost"". In Renaissance England, a"
"of the English Language"" in 1966 meaning ""having a fantastically complicated improvised appearance"", or ""deviously complex and impractical."" The 1915 usage of ""Goldbergian"" was in reference to Goldberg's early comic strip ""Foolish Questions"" which he drew from 1909 to 1934, while later use of the terms ""Goldbergian"", ""Rube Goldberg"" and "" Rube Goldberg machine"" refer to the crazy inventions for which he is now best known from his strip ""The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts"", drawn from 1914 to 1964. The corresponding term in the UK was, and still is, ""Heath Robinson"", after the English illustrator with an equal"
"humans and animals before becoming the Learned Pig. He recalls his previous incarnations. After Romulus he became Brutus, and then entered several human and animal bodies. Adapting the Shakespeare theme, the pamphlet states that he became a man called ""Pimping Billy"", who worked as a horse-holder at a playhouse with Shakespeare and was the real author of his plays. He then became a famous British aristocrat and general — identified only by asterisks — before entering the body of a pig. Puns on the name ""Bacon"", referring to the philosopher Francis Bacon, also appeared in the literature. In the poem"
"Nashe, in ""Summer's Last Will and Testament"" (1592, printed 1600): ""the Idiot, our Playmaker. He, like a Fop & an Ass must be making himself a public laughing-stock."" Osric, in ""Hamlet"" has a great deal of the fop's affected manner, and much of the plot of ""Twelfth Night"" revolves around tricking the puritan Malvolio into dressing as a fop. ""Fop"" was widely used as a derogatory epithet for a broad range of people by the early years of the 18th century; many of these might not have been considered showy lightweights at the time, and it is possible that its"
"the ""Oxford English Dictionary"", the first recorded use of ""malapropos"" in English is from 1630, and the first person known to have used the word ""malaprop"" in the sense of ""a speech error"" is Lord Byron in 1814. The synonymous term ""Dogberryism"" comes from the 1598 Shakespeare play ""Much Ado About Nothing"" in which the character Dogberry utters many malapropisms to humorous effect. Though Shakespeare was an earlier writer than Sheridan, ""malaprop/malapropism"" seems an earlier coinage than ""Dogberryism"", which is not attested until 1836. An instance of speech error is called a malapropism when a word is produced which is"
"by the stage) that frequented the Globe Theatre were more likely to be drawn to these Shakespearean fools. However they were also favoured by the nobility. Most notably, Queen Elizabeth I was a great admirer of the popular actor who portrayed fools, Richard Tarlton. For Shakespeare himself, however, actor Robert Armin may have proved vital to the cultivation of the fool character in his many plays. In a similar vein, a buffoon is someone who provides amusement through inappropriate appearance or behavior. Originally the term was used to describe a ridiculous but amusing person. The term is now frequently used"
"Shakespeare used broken English to convey the national pride of Scottish and Irish allies in the King's invasion of Normandy. When Henry himself last implores the French Princess Katherine to marry him, knowing that her command of the English language is limited, he says to her: ""Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music and thy English broken; therefore, queen of all, Katherine, break thy mind to me in broken English."" Broken English Broken English is a poorly spoken or ill-written version of the English language, sometimes considered a pidgin. Under the strictest definition of the term,"
"folkloric Norse magician Ochus Bochus: As an alternative to other theories, it may simply be pseudo-Latin with no meaning, made up to impress people: Hocus pocus (magic) Hocus pocus is a generic term that may be derived from an ancient language and is currently used by stage magicians, usually the magic words spoken when bringing about some sort of change. It was once a common term for a magician, juggler, or other similar entertainers. The earliest known English-language work on magic, or what was then known as ""legerdemain"" (sleight of hand), was published anonymously in 1635 under the title ""Hocus"
"plays of the First Folio occur in the order given below; plays that had never been published before 1623 are marked with an asterisk. Each play is followed by the type of source used, as determined by bibliographical research. The term ""foul papers"" refers to Shakespeare's working drafts of a play. When completed, a transcript or ""fair copy"" of the foul papers would be prepared, by the author or by a scribe. Such a manuscript would have to be heavily annotated with accurate and detailed stage directions and all the other data needed for performance, and then could serve as"
"Stupidity Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, or common sense. Stupidity may be innate, assumed or reactive – a defence against grief or trauma. The root word ""stupid"", which can serve as an adjective or noun, comes from the Latin verb ""stupere"", for being numb or astonished, and is related to ""stupor"". In Roman culture, the ""stupidus"" was the professional fall guy in the theatrical mimes. According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, the words ""stupid"" and ""stupidity"" entered the English language in 1541. Since then, stupidity has taken place along with ""fool,"" ""idiot,"" ""dumb,"" ""moron,"" and related"
"forms of English. The most enduring of these early theories suggested that the Appalachian dialect was a remnant of Elizabethan English, a theory popularized by Berea College president William Goddell Frost in the late 1800s. However, while Shakespearean words occasionally appear in Appalachian speech (e.g., ""afeared""), these occurrences are rare. Examples of archaic phrases include the use of ""might could"" for ""might be able to"", the use of ""'un"" with pronouns and adjectives (e.g., ""young'un""), the use of ""done"" as a helping verb (e.g., ""we done finished it""), and the use of words such as ""airish"", ""brickle"", ""swan"", and ""bottom"
"mean ""to put an abrupt end to"", with the forms ""scotched"", ""scotching"", ""scotches"". For example: ""The prime minister scotched the rumours of her illness by making a public appearance."" Also, in the traditional children's game of ""hopscotch"", known as ""peevers"" in Scotland, it refers to the lines one hops over. The adjective or noun ""Scotch"" is an early modern English (16th century) contraction of the English word ""Scottish"" which was later adopted into the Scots language. It more or less replaced ""Scottish"" as the prevailing term in England in the 17th century. The English playwright William Shakespeare used the word"