Dictionary

foppery en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree English fop Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzios Latin -āriusnom. Latin -ārius Old French -ier Latin -ia Old French -ie Old French -eriebor. Middle English -erie English -ery English foppery From fop + -ery.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The dress or actions of a fop.
   • And it is by their fopperies and their frivolities that we know that their sinister philosophy is sincere; in their lights and garlands and ribbons we read their indwelling despair. 1902, G.K. Chesterton, Twelve Types:
2. (countable, uncountable) Stupidity.
   • This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, / when we are sick in fortune,–often the surfeit / of our own behavior,–we make guilty of our / disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as / if we were villains by necessity; fools by / heavenly compulsion […] c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], lines 118–122:
   • Still, still the secret presses; The nearing clouds draw down; The crimson morning flames into The fopperies of the town. 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poems:
   • The energies of his mind led him to despise the fopperies of idolatry; and he found the Christians, in the most unfavourable situation, torn into innumerable parties, by the sectaries of Athanasius, Arius, Eutyches, Nestorius. 1783, William Godwin, Four Early Pamphlets:

Forms

Translations (6)

cmn 紈絝子弟的行為 /纨绔子弟的行为 (dress or actions of a fop) · cs šviháctví (dress or actions of a fop) · fi keikarointi (dress or actions of a fop) · ru пижо́нство (dress or actions of a fop) · fr m'as-tu-vu (dress or actions of a fop) · cmn 紈絝子弟的穿著 /纨绔子弟的穿著 (dress or actions of a fop)