Jack-in-the-green
1. A man or boy inclosed in a wooden or wicker pyramidal framework covered with leaves, in the May-day sports of chimney-sweepers, etc.
| 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. iv. iii. §20 Jack in the Green..consists of a hollow frame of wood or wicker work, made in the form of a sugar loaf, but open at the bottom, and sufficiently large and high to receive a man..who dances with his companions. a 1845 Hood Sweep's Compl. 63. 1855 Dickens Dorrit i. xxi. 1895 H. B. Wheatley Pepys' Diary VI. 296 note, The editor saw a jack-in-the-green with men dressed as milkmaids dancing round it on May 1st of the present year. |
| attrib. 1897 M. Kingsley W. Africa 529 The heads of his society..go out to meet him in their canoes, and bring him in his Jack-in-the-Green dress ashore. |
2. ‘A variety of
Primula vulgaris [the primrose], in which the calyx is transformed into leaves’ (Britten & Holland
Eng. Plant-n.).
| 1876 Gard. Chron. 8 Apr. 472. |