Elizabethan Insults

If, perchance, thou hast need for a goodly insult, a most wondrous malediction may be arrived at by the simple combination of one word from each of the three columns below, preceded by "Thou."

artless

base-court

apple-john

bawdy

bat-fowling

baggage

beslubbering

beef-witted

barnacle

bootless

beetle-headed

bladder

cockered

clapper-clawed

bum-bailey

craven

common-kissing

canker-blossom

dankish

dizzy-eyed

coxcomb

droning

doghearted

codpiece

errant

dread-bolted

death-token

fawning

earth-vexing

dewberry

forward

fat-kidneyed

flax-wench

frothy

fen-sucked

flirt-gill

gleeking

flap-mouthed

foot-licker

gorbellied

folly-fallen

giglot

infectious

full-gorged

haggard

loggerheaded

half-faced

hedge-pig

mammering

hedge-born

hugger-mugger

mewling

idle-headed

lewdster

paunchy

ill-breeding

lout

pribbling

ill-nurtured

maggot-pie

puny

milk-livered

mammet

rank

onion-eyed

minnow

roguish

pottle-deep

mold-warp

saucy

reeling-ripe

nut-hook

spleeny

rough-hewn

pigeon-egg

spongy

rude-growing

pignut

tottering

shard-bone

pumpion

villainous

tardy-gaited

strumpet

wayward

toad-spotted

vassal

yeasty

weather-bitten

wagtail

Should the application of any goodly combination of the above fail to dismay thy foe, explain the meaning of each word unto him in small words, that he may understand.

Back