or -dish, -fingers, -pan, -pot, -sauce, -trencher, subs. (old).—See quot. 1598; a general epithet of abuse.
1571. GOLDING, Calvin on Psalms. (To Reader), p. 9. Not onely LINKTRENCHERS but claw backs, which curry favour with great men by their false appeachings.
1575. STILL, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, v. 2. Thou lier LICKDISH, didst not say the neele wold be gitton?
1595. Locrine, iii. 3. You, slopsauce, LICKFINGERS, will you not hear?
1598. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Leccapiatti, a LICKE-DISH, a scullion in a kitching, a slouen. Ibid., s.v. Leccapignatte, a LICK-POT, scullion … a slouenly greasie fellow.
1602. DEKKER, Satiromastix, in Works (1871), i. 234. Art hardy, noble Huon? art Magnanimious, LICKE-TRENCHER?
1631. CHETTLE, Hoffman, v. 1. Liar, liar!—LICK-DISH!
1653. URQUHART, Rabelais, ii. ch. xxx. Agamemnon is a LICK-BOX.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
c. 1794. WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), Ode upon Ode, in Works (Dublin 1795), vol. i. p. 321.
| ‘A cobbler, baker, chang’d to a musician, | |
| Butlers, LICK-TRENCHERS!’ my reader roars. |
1853. BULWER-LYTTON, My Novel, Bk. vi. ch. xxiii. He had a passion for independence, which, though pushed to excess, was not without grandeur. No LICK-PLATTER, no parasite, no toad-eater, no literary beggar, no hunter after patronage and subscriptions.
