liripoop

• liripipe

From Old French liripipion, liripion, Latin liripipium. Said to be corrupted from cleri ephippium (“the clergy's caparison”).

liripoop (plural liripoops)

1. (obsolete) A pendent part of the old clerical tippet.
   • 1647, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, Wit at Severall Weapons:

     So, so, I have my lerrepoop already.

   • 1861, Charles MacFarlane, The comprehensive history of England, page 202:

     The hood and liripoop (the long tail or tippet of the hood) was worn by the laity of both sexes as well as by the clergy.

2. (obsolete) A tippet; a scarf; worn also by doctors, learned men, etc.
   • 1807, François Rabelais, Works - Volume 1, page 194:

     MASTER Janotus , with his hair cut round as a dish, his Liripoop on his head , after the old fashion; and having sufficiently antidoted his stomach with kitchen-cordials, and holy water of the cellar, conveyed himself to the lodging of Gargantua, driving before him three red muzzled beadles, and dragging after him five or six artless masters, all thoroughly bedagled with the mire of the streets.

   • 1843, The Foundation Statutes of Bishop Fox for Corpus Christi, page 139:

     Moreover, we forbid all the above persons to use beyond the College any mantles or liripoops of fine linen or woollen, except on the attack of some disease, or on leave obtained from the President or Vice-President, for urgent reason;

   • 1870, John Chappel Woodhouse, A short Account of Lichfield Cathedral, page 92:

     Male head with bold face: it has a very peculiar hood, with liripoop.

   • 1889, John McClintock, James Strong, Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature:

     The liripoop lingers in the hat-band, and is used at funerals.

   • 2016, “Anton Rubenstadt amicably and with hearty affection wisheth weal to Magister Ortwin Gratius”, in Ulrich Von Hutten, editor, Letters of Obscure Men, page 54:

     The garb of a Doctor of Divinity, as you know, consisteth of a large cope with a liripoop.

3. (obsolete) acuteness; smartness; knowledge.
   • 1594, Thomas Nash, The Vnfortvnate Traveller:

     Heere was a wily wench had her liripoop without book, she was not to seeke in her knackes and shifts: such are all women, each of them hath a cloke for the raine, and can bleare her husbands eies as she list.

   • 1598, John Lyly, Mother Bombie:

     There's a girl who knows her lirripoop.

   • 1605, George Chapman, All Fools:

     No, I'll be sworn she has her liripoop, too.

   • 1631, Shackerley Marmion, Holland's Leaguer:

     I warrant you, sir, my mistress and I Have practised our liripoop together.

4. (obsolete) One's proper business or prescribed role.
   • 156?, Ulpian Fulwell, Like Will to Like:

     For seeing you make me your judge, I trow, I shall teach you both your liripoop to know.

   • 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, “The Historie of Irelande ”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande , volume I, London: for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC, folio 20, verso, column 2:

     I will teach thee thy lyrripups.

   • 1935, E. R. Eddison, Mistress of Mistresses:

     'I know my liripoop without coming here to learn it,' said Mandricard as the Duke began to move off.

   • 2020, Ushashi Dasgupta, Charles Dickens and the Properties of Fiction, page 270:

     Dickens's own Mrs Lirriper is a stock character, but she breaks out of her mould and refuses to play her prescribed part—her 'liripoop'.

5. (obsolete) A silly person.
   • 1872, Stephen Powers, Afoot and Alone, page 28:

     I thought I would ask him questions fast enough and directly enough to force from him a positive answer of “yes” or “no” —a thing which it is exceedingly difficult to obtain in the piney-woods—but I found he was no liripoop.

   • August 14, 1915, “Optimists and Asses”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, volume 120, number 3120:

     Jones, however, for his part, is sometimes equally inane in criticising Smith, who holds that millions of Germans have now been killed off, that the copper has all been melted down, and that the occupation of Warsaw is the last desperate resort of the Kaiser—or, rather, of "the imperial gambler", to use an effective and stylish expression among liripoops; for he derides Smith as an optimist—as if optimism signified a person who holds absurd or addle-headed opinions directly contrary to the clear truth.

   • 1975, Thomas Starling, The King and the Cat, page 153:

     I want to discuss your rakshasa spouse, She's giving me fits, the liripoop souse.

   • 2021, James Howell Street, The Velvet Doublet:

     Brother Diego stared doltishly around the hall, ogling the rich trappings, and the monarchs dismissed him as the liripoop he was.

• “liripoop”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.