ˈpickle-ˌherring Now rare.
[Found first as pickled herring, f. pickled ppl. a.; somewhat later pickle-herring, after MD. or early mod.Du. peeckel-harinck (1567 Junius Nomenclator), MLG. pekel-herink (Lübben-Walther), both in sense 1, mod.Du. pekel-haring, mod.G. pickelhäring.]
† 1. lit. A pickled herring. Obs.
| α c 1570 Pride & Lowl. (1841) 75 For feare of meeting with a pickled hearing And mountaynes made of matters frivolous. 1598 Meres Pallad. Tamia II. 286 b, Robert Greene died of a surfet taken at Pickeld Herrings, & Rhenish wine. 1796 H. Hunter tr. St.-Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) I. 260 Those which are caught far to the North, known, in Holland, by the name of pickled herrings. |
| β 1573–80 Baret Alv. H 405 A pickle Herring, halec conditanea. 1600 Rowlands Lett. Humours Blood vi. 77 Taken with a Pickle-herring or two, As Flemmings at Saint Katherines vse to do. 1607 Dekker Knts. Conjur. (1842) 76 Hee had..shortened his dayes by keeping company with pickle herrings. |
2. A clown, a buffoon, a merry-andrew.
This application of the term originated in German. It appears in 1620 in
Engelische Comedien vnd Tragedien..sampt dem Pickelhering, where it is the name of a humorous character in one of the plays, and of the chief actor in a series of ‘Pickelhärings-spiele’ and ‘Singspiele’ (
= jig n.1 4). One of the latter is a version of R. Cox's
Singing Simpkin, and a Dutch version of this, from the German, as
Singende klucht van Pekelharingh in de Kist, 1648, is the first known evidence of the use in Dutch, to which Addison attributed it in 1711—the first mention in English. (Grimm's Dictionary is in error in ascribing to it an English origin.)
| α 1711 Addison Spect. No. 47 ¶6 A Set of merry Drolls..whom every Nation calls by the Name of that Dish of Meat which it loves best. In Holland they are termed Pickled Herrings; in France, Jean Pottages; in Italy, Maccaronies; and in Great Britain, Jack Puddings. 1726 Arbuthnot Diss. Dumpling (ed. 5) 8 Content your selves with being Zanies, Pickled-Herrings, Punchionellos. |
| β 1716–20 Lett. fr. Mist's Jrnl. (1722) I. 81 Pickle-Herring was then in the Heighth of his Archness, Activity, and Grimaces. 1790 Bystander 134 Making a Merry-Andrew of himself, in imitation of the other Pickle-herring. 1849 tr. Meinhold's Sidonia the Sorceress II. 232 People think it must be pickelherring, or some such strolling mummers come to exhibit to the folk during the evening. |
| attrib. 1789 Wolcott (P. Pindar) Ode to eight Cats ix, She mounteth with a pickle-herring spring, Without th' assistance of a rope. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. i. ix, Their high State Tragedy..becomes a Pickleherring-Farce to weep at, which is the worst kind of Farce. |