subs. (common).—Coarse language, scurrilous abuse: from the evil reputation which the market of the same name has enjoyed for centuries. In the seventeenth century references to the violent and abusive speech of those frequenting the place were very numerous. In French an analogous reference is made to the Place Maubert, also long noted for its noisy market. TO BILLINGSGATE (or TALK BILLINGSGATE) = to scold, talk coarsely (or violently); to SLANG (q.v.). So also, YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN A BILLINGSGATE FISHFAG (or FISHWIFE) = rude and ill-mannered; BILLINGSGATRY, scurrilous language.
1598. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Caualleressa, a roucinall woman, a huge BOSSE of BILLINGSGATE.
1677. WYCHERLEY, The Plain Dealer, iii. Quaint. … Whose reputation, though never so clear and evident in the eye of the world, yet with sharp invectives—— Wid. Alias, Billingsgate. Quaint. With poignant and sour invectives, I say, I will deface.
1678. A. LITTLETON, Linguæ Latiæ Liber Dictionarius Quadripartitus. TO BILLINGSGATE IT. Arripere maledictum ex trivio.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. BILLINGSGATE-DIALECT, Scolding, ill Language, foul Words.
1706. WARD, The Wooden World Dissected, 20. In this kind of unmanly BILLINGSGATE clashing he is a … great … master. Ibid., 56. He has a thousand pretty phrases and Expressions pickt up at Billingsgate.
1711. DEFOE, The Review, VII., preface. As long as faction feeds the flame, we shall never want BILLINGSGATE to revile one another with.
1712. Spectator, 451. Our satire is nothing but ribaldry, and BILLINGSGATE.
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 1. The brangling ward of BILLINGSGATE.
1852. THACKERAY, Esmond, ix. If she had come with bowl and dagger, would have been routed off the ground by the enemy with a volley of BILLINGSGATE, which the fair person always kept by her.
1876. C. HINDLEY, ed. The Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, 100. Ever and anon bawling out in a BILLINSGATE voice, ‘Two ounces a penny again—lollipop and pop-loly.’
1876. C. HINDLEY, ed. The Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, 134. Messrs. Cannon and Co. defied the surgeon or anybody else to say the fish was bad, and kept jabbering away both at the same time and in elegant ‘BILLINGSGATE,’ until the constable returned; but he came without the doctor, who had gone to attend an urgent case out of the town, and the people at his house could not say when he would return.
