subs. (old).—A bully; a blusterer.
1659. Lady Alimony, ii., 6 (DODSLEY, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xiv., 322). HECTORS, or champion-haxters, pimps or palliards. Ibid., iii., 1 (p. 326). Levelling at honour, they declare themselves really HECTORS.
1692. J. HACKET, Life of Archbishop Williams, ii., 203. One HECTOR, a phrase at that time for a daring ruffian, had the ear of great ones sooner than five strict men.
1674. COTTON, The Compleat Gamester, p. 5. Shoals of Hulls, HECTORS, Setters, Jilts, Pads, etc. … and these may all pass under the general or common appellation of Rooks.
1677. WYCHERLEY, The Plain Dealer, iv., 1. She would rather trust her honour with some dissolute debauched HECTOR.
1679. BUTLER, Hudibras, iii., 2, 108.
| As bones of HECTORS, when they differ, | |
| The more they ’re cudgel’d grow the stiffer. |
1689. SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, Twenty Two Select Colloquies out of Erasmus, p. 139. And a Ruffling HECTOR that lives, upon the High-way.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. HECTOR, a Vaporing, Swaggering Coward.
1719. D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, ii., 24. I hate, she cry’d, a HECTOR, a Drone without a Sting.
1725. A New Canting Dictionary
1750. OZELL, Rabelais, iv., Pref. xxiii. These roaring HECTORS.
1757. POPE, Imitations of Horace, ii., 1, 71.
| I only wear it in a land of HECTORS, | |
| Thieves, Supercargoes, Sharpers, and Directors. |
1778. BAILEY, English Dictionary, s.v.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1826. Register of Debates in Congress, ii., 1, p. 1024. He hoped it would invite, if not provoke, a reply from the Southern HECTOR, or the Northern Ajax, of this debate.
Verb (common).—To play the bully; to bluster. Also TO PLAY THE HECTOR.
1677. WYCHERLEY, The Plain Dealer, ii., 1. No HECTORING, good Captain.
1849–61. MACAULAY, The History of England, ch. xvi. TO PLAY THE HECTOR at cockpits or hazard tables.
TO WEAR HECTOR’S CLOAK, verb. phr. (old).—To receive the right reward for treachery. [When Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was routed in 1569, he hid himself in the house of Hector Armstrong, of Harlaw, who betrayed him for hire, and prospered so ill thereafter that he died a beggar by the roadside.]
