英和和英

名詞

pickle-herring (plural pickle-herrings)

1. (obsolete) A herring preserved in brine; a pickled herring.
   • 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]:

     'Tis a Gentleman heere. A plague o'these
     pickle herring: How now Sot.

2. (obsolete) A buffoon.
   • 1714 September 25 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “TUESDAY, 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:

     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.

     The spelling has been modernized.