Word: periwig
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1894-1894
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...monks who did no work but singing-cantabant, Hocus-pocus again satirizes their ignorance, and also contains a sly Protestant laugh at the Catholic mystery of transubstantiation-hoc est corpus. That wigs were originally a French fashion is plain enough in the word itself-first corrupted from perruque to periwig, and then contracted for convenience to wig. Chouse, in the sense of to cheat, carries us back to the days of James First, when an impostor palmed himself off upon the people of London as a Turkish ambassador, or Chiaus. That the English learned some of their seamanship from...