Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 240
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….
Parson
And this is a walking related definition from Grose, which is “a guide post, hand or finger post by the road side for directing travellers: compared to a parson, because, like him, it sets people in the right way”. Not that Grose treated religious office holders with respect with all of his definitions, some were perhaps far more telling about the realities of late eighteenth century religious figures.