Also 5–7 fopp(e. [Connected with next. For the development of sense cf. F. fat, orig. ‘fool’ (L. fatuus), now ‘fop, coxcomb.’]
† 1. A foolish person, a fool. Obs.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 170/1. Foppe, supra, idem quod folet.
c. 1450. Cov. Myst., 295.
| Spek man, spek! spek, thou fop! | |
| Hast thou scorn to speke to me? |
c. 1590. Greene, Fr. Bacon, vii. 110.
| Deem you us men of base and light esteem, | |
| To bring us such a fop for Henry’s son? |
a. 1716. South, Serm. Prov. xxii. 6 (1737), V. 10. A blessed improvement doubtless, and such as the Fops our Ancestors (as some use to call them) were never acquainted with.
† b. Applied to a girl. Obs.
1714. C. Johnson, Country Lasses, I. i. Flora. Cousin, thou art a very wild fop.
† 2. A conceited person, a pretender to wit, wisdom, or accomplishments; a coxcomb, ‘prig.’ Obs.
1755. Young, Centaur, vi. Wks. 1757, IV. 253. These hypocrites in vice, these moral fops, ridiculously good, may be called little men in Centaurs skins; or cowards virtue in masquerade.
1805. Med. Jrnl., XIV. 440. This serious charge, brought by the excellent physician of Pergamos against the medical fops of his age.
3. One who is foolishly attentive to and vain of his appearance, dress, or manners; a dandy, an exquisite.
1672–6. [see 4].
1681. Otway, Soldier’s Fort., II. i., Wks. 1728, I. 353. Be sure at next Turning to pick up some taudry fluttering Fop or another.
1710. Palmer, Proverbs, 193. They [the Fair-Sex] can find a multitude of Fops who love to have their Persons admir’d, look as often in their Glass, are as Nice and Formal in their Dress, and as Awkard [sic] and Foolish when they hear themselves Flatter’d as the silliest Woman in Europe.
1826. Disraeli, Viv. Grey, V. vi. His tightened waist, his stiff stock, and the elaborate attention which had evidently been bestowed upon his mustachios denoted the military fop.
1876. Miss Braddon, J. Haggard’s Dau., II. ii. 71. My dearest, that was written in the days of Charles II., when poets were fops and courtiers, and it was incumbent on a court poet to have a new mistress as often as he had a new coat.
4. attrib. and Comb., chiefly attributive, as fop-call, -gravity, -maker, -neighbor, -picture; † Fops’ alley, ‘a passage up the centre of the pit in the old Opera House where dandies congregated’ (Davies); † fop-corner, a resort of fops; † fop-road, the habits and practices of a fop.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, II. iv. During the last dance she was discovered by Sir Robert Floyer, who sauntering down *fop’s alley, stationed himself by her side.
1820. Byron, Lett. to Murray, 12 Nov. He proceeded to the Opera, and took his station in Fops’ Alley.
1676. Etheredge, Man of Mode, IV. i. Wks. (1888), 329. Dor. A fiddle in this town is a kind of *fop-call; no sooner it strikes up but the house is besieged with an army of masquerades straight.
1673. Dryden, Marriage à la Mode, Prologue, 3.
| *Fop-corner now is free from civil war, | |
| White-wig and vizard make no longer jar. |
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, I. xi. The captain owed nothing to any of these *fopmakers in his dress, nor was his person much more beholden to nature.
1795. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Pindariana, Wks. 1812, IV. 183.
| But our *fop-neighbours see things with strange eyes: | |
| Alas! Sublimity ne’er left her skies, | |
| To take a Frenchman by the hand. |
1698. Def. Dram. Poetry, 82. In all the Stage *Fop-pictures, the Play-house bids so fair for mending that Fool too, that, that if the good Will fails, the Fault’s not in the Mirror, the Hand that holds it, or the Light ’tis sets at, but the perverse and deprav’d Opticks that cannot see themselves there.
1677. Mrs. Behn, The Town-Fopp, v. 66. I am not so unreasonable to tye you up from all of that Profession; that were to spoil a fashionable Husband, and so put you quite out of *Fopp Road.
