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OP 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.
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted Piccadilly Circus dxb 03/12/03 12:47 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus dxb 03/12/03 12:48 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus dxb 03/12/03 12:51 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus wwh 03/12/03 01:43 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus Bingley 03/13/03 04:56 AM Re: Piccadilly Circus Jackie 03/14/03 02:42 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus Bean 03/14/03 11:28 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus dxb 03/17/03 02:12 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus wwh 03/17/03 02:36 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus sjm 03/17/03 09:08 PM Pickardill - definition dxb 03/18/03 09:35 AM Re: Piccadilly Circus of troy 03/14/03 11:49 PM Re: Piccadilly Circus Jackie 03/15/03 01:31 AM
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