Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
pickle-herring en · NOUN
Meanings
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(obsolete) A herring preserved in brine; a pickled herring.
'Tis a Gentleman heere. A plague o'these
pickle herring: How now Sot.
c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
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(obsolete) A buffoon.
The first who made the experiment was a merry-andrew, who was put into my hands by a neighbouring justice of peace, in order to reclaim him from that profligate kind of life. Poor Pickle-herring had not taken above one turn in it, when he came out of the cave, like a hermit from his cell, with a penitential look and a most rueful countenance.
1714 September 24 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “MONDAY, September 14, 1714”, in The Spectator, number 599; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume VI, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
Forms