ˈpuppet-show
Also 7 poppit-, 8 poppet-.
[f. puppet n. 3 + show n.]
A show, display, or exhibition of puppets; esp. a dramatic performance with or of puppets; a puppet-play. Also transf. and fig.
| 1650 T. Hubbert Pill Formality 138 The devil may buy his soul for a Poppit-shew. 1661 Pepys Diary 7 Sept., Here was ‘Bartholomew Fayre’, with the puppet-showe, acted to-day. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 16 ¶2 Prudentia..had bespoke on the same Evening the Poppet-Show of The Creation of the World. 1774 J. Harrower Diary in Amer. Hist. Rev. (1900) VI. 87 This night finishes the Puppet shows, roape dancings &c, which has continowed every night this week in town. 1795 tr. C. P. Moritz's Travels 88 Electricity happens at present to be the puppet-show of the English. 1807 Salmagundi xi. 262, I have seen that great political puppet-show—an Election. 1818 Scott Let. 10 Sept., I would much sooner write an opera for Punch's puppet-show. 1836 [see looker n. 1 b]. 1857 Hawthorne Eng. Note-Bks. (1870) II. 351, I..saw a fair, with puppet-shows, booths of penny actors, merry-go-rounds, clowns, boxers. 1914 Amer. Rev. of Reviews Jan. 102/1 The puppet show does not flourish in our American cities. 1951 Lambert & Marx Eng. Popular Art i. 6 Bunyan's contemporaries..could see their secular prototypes..in pageants and puppet shows. |
| attrib. 1742 Fielding Miss Lucy in Town (1762) 180 You must strip yourself of your poppet-shew dress. 1749 ― Tom Jones xii. vi, The puppet-show man ran out to punish his Merry Andrew. |
Hence
ˈpuppet-ˌshower,
ˈpuppet-ˈshowman, a man who exhibits or manages a puppet-show.
| 1715 Lond. Gaz. No. 5329/3 Rope Dancers, Poppet Shewers. 1715 R. Powel (title) Second tale of a tub: or the history of Robert Powel the Puppet-Show-Man. 1820 Edin. Rev. XXXIV. 278 The puppet-showman at a Venetian Carnival. 1855 Hawthorne Eng. Note-bks. (1870) I. 347 Tumblers, hand-organists, puppet-showmen,..and all such vagrant mirth-makers. |