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I’ll try the OED when I get home tonight and see if it has more to say.
Piccadill. Obs. ‘the several divisions or pieces fastened together about the brim of the collar of a doublet’ (1611) app. Answering to a. Sp. ‘piccadillo’, diminutive of picado – pricked, pierced, slashed, minced [cf. picado – a puncture, picadillo – minced meat, hash]. As to the connection of Pickadilly Hall with this word, various conjectures were current already at the time of Blount, 1656, who mentions two: either ‘because it was then the outmost or skirt house of the suburbs that way’ or ‘ from this, that Higgins a tailor, who built it, got most of his estate by pickadilles, which in the last age (= generation) were much worn in England.’
Jackie mentioned ‘peccadillo’, apparently this also comes from Spanish – peccadillo, diminutive of pecado, sin. A small or venial fault or sin; a trifling offense.
So, picado > Piccadilly, pecado > peccadillo. No connection with pigs, that’s a whole ‘nother story.
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Piccadilly Circus
dxb 03/12/2003 12:47 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
dxb 03/12/2003 12:48 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
dxb 03/12/2003 12:51 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
wwh 03/12/2003 1:43 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
Bingley 03/13/2003 4:56 AM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
Jackie 03/14/2003 2:42 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
Bean 03/14/2003 11:28 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
dxb 03/17/2003 2:12 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
wwh 03/17/2003 2:36 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
sjm 03/17/2003 9:08 PM ![]()
Pickardill - definition
dxb 03/18/2003 9:35 AM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
of troy 03/14/2003 11:49 PM ![]()
Re: Piccadilly Circus
Jackie 03/15/2003 1:31 AM
Moderated by Jackie
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