subs. (old).—A stupid blundering fellow. (GROSE).
1694. ECHARD, Plautus’s Comedies Made English, Preface. If any man can shew me a greater lyer, or a more bragging coxcomb than this BLUNDERBUSS, he shall take me, make me his slave, and starve me with whey and butter-milk.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew. BLUNDERBUSS, a Dunce, an unganely Fellow.
1729. WOOLSTON, A Sixth Discourse on the Miracles of our Saviour, 50. No wise Man hardly ever reprehends a BLUNDERBUSS for his Bull, any other way, than by laughing at him.
1771. SMOLLETT, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, i., 122. He too pronounced ex cathedra, upon the characters of his cotemporaries … One is a BLUNDERBUSS, as being a native of Ireland, another a half-starved louse of literature from the banks of the Tweed.
18[?]. Notes and Queries, 4 S., iii., 561. [An old story is related of a lady in a cathedral town asking the schoolmaster, “Is my son in a fair way to be a canon?” “A very fair way, madam; he is a BLUNDERBUSS already.”]
