Word of the Day
: May 25, 2010foppery
playWhat It Means
1 : foolish character or action : folly
2 : the behavior or dress of a fop
foppery in Context
"There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it which she could not approve." (Jane Austen, Emma)
Did You Know?
The word "fop" once referred to a foolish or silly person, a meaning that is now obsolete. The current sense of "fop" -- a man who is extremely devoted to or vain about his appearance or dress -- still holds a rather quaint charm. "Fop," which derives from Middle English, is related loosely to a Middle High German word meaning "to deceive" and dates from the 15th century. The noun "foppery" arrived on the scene in English about a century later. Its "folly" sense can be found in Shakespeare’s King Lear, where Edmund speaks of "the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars…."
