Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An English variety of large cooking apple.
- noun Archaic The human head.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An apple.
- noun The head.
- noun Also
costerd .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An apple, large and round like the head.
- noun The head; -- used contemptuously.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun UK a large
cooking apple
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The term, which derived from the words costard (a type of apple) and monger (a seller) is particularly associated with the original "barrow boys" of London who would sell their produce from these wheeled market stalls.
Archive 2008-06-01 Thatsnews 2008
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The term, which derived from the words costard (a type of apple) and monger (a seller) is particularly associated with the original "barrow boys" of London who would sell their produce from these wheeled market stalls.
Rare Antique Costermonger Barrows For Sale by Trainspotters.uk.com Thatsnews 2008
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At length, I suppose the lad either guessed the secret of his birth or something of it was communicated to him; and the disgust which the paughty Hieland varlet had always shown for my honest trade became more manifest; so that I dared not so much as lay my staff over his costard, for fear of receiving a stab with a dirk, as an answer in Gaelic to a Saxon remark.
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Freeshots Feilbogen in his rockery garden with the costard?
Finnegans Wake 2006
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But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?
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Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt in the next room.
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As varieties of the Apple, mention is made in documents of the twelfth century, of the pearmain, and the costard, from the latter of which has come the word costardmonger, as at first a dealer in this fruit, and now applied to our costermonger.
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie
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But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?
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A wonder, master! heres a costard broken in a shin.
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Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the malmsey-butt in the next room.
vanishedone commented on the word costard
What is actually monged by a costermonger, according to the OED: a kind of apple.
September 25, 2008
chelster commented on the word costard
Costard, a clown, a character in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.
"I am no clownish Costard, prating for your delectation."
— Tooth and Nail: A Novel Approach to the SAT by Charles Harrington Elster and Joseph Elliot (1994)
April 5, 2011