Slender

See also: slender

English

Etymology

From the character of Abraham Slender in Shakespeare's play The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Noun

Slender (plural Slenders)

  1. (UK, slang, obsolete) A simple country gentleman.
    • 1833, James Anthony Froude, ‎John Tulloch, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country (volume 7, page 427)
      […] the fantastic pilgrimages imposed on the "Cousin Slenders" of the world by their more facetious comrades […]
    • 1871, Belgravia, page 462:
      […] here also, behind the pillars, dark villains like Varney, and assassins like Iago, watched the simple country Slenders and the besotted Master Mathews, themselves grimly observed by honest water-carriers like Ben Jonson's Cob and Shakespeare's Adam.
    • 1877, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, volume 15, page 492:
      A walk through the pleasant little town of Cirencester upon a market day will show Slenders and Simples by the dozen.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.