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Fop   Listen
noun
Fop  n.  One whose ambition it is to gain admiration by showy dress; a coxcomb; an inferior dandy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fop" Quotes from Famous Books



... a pensee of Pascal's to the effect that a fop carries on his person the evidence of the existence of so many people devoted to his service. This thought may be delightful to a fop; but it is not pleasant to a mind sensitive to beauty and hating the bare thought of ugliness: for while vanity takes pleasure in lack of harmony between oneself ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... maiden's heart! In your ecstasy for this Ganymede, who is probably an old crippled monster, you make rare confusion. You force the young girl to play the part of the ardent lover, and give to your monster the character of a cool, vain fop." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... turning over several leaves of his notebook, he rattled out the following names: "Alcibiades, kind of statesman; Beau Brummel, fop; Cagliostro, conjurer; Robespierre, politician; Charles Stuart, Pretender; Warwick, King-maker; Borgia, A., Pope; Ditto, C., toxicologist; Wallenstein, mercenary; Bacon, Roger, man of science; Ditto, F., dishonest official; Tell, W., patriot; Jones, Paul, pirate; Lucullus, glutton; Simon Stylites, ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... often wished to wound him, to make him feel that she too held him in contempt, that she too had forgotten that she had almost loved him. Loved that inane fop! whose thoughts seemed unable to soar beyond the tying of a cravat or the new cut of a coat. Bah! And yet! . . . vague memories, that were sweet and ardent and attuned to this calm summer's evening, came wafted back to ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... bitterly. "A fop, dear old Ham! A tailor's dummy! A jolly old clothes-horse—that's what he was. I simply loathe these people who leap around the City for a funeral. It's not right, dear old thing. It's not manly, dear old sport. What the devil did her father have ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... curved lashes to his grey eyes, a pathetic droop to his lip, the bloom as of a peach on his cheeks. But you could never mistake him for a girl. His eyes had a critical blink, he looked to have the discretion of a man. A fop he might be; he had a wiry mind. A fop, in fact, he was. He had a little scarlet cap on his head, scarlet stockings, peaked scarlet shoes: for the rest he was in green cloth with a blue leather belt about his waist. He ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... took the coin and stuck it in his eye, as a fop of our day holds his eye-glasses. Morgan divined that this pantomime had ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... is the book; here is your role: read." And I read. He did not commend; at some passages he scowled and stamped. He gave me a lesson: I diligently imitated. It was a disagreeable part—a man's—an empty-headed fop's. One could put into it neither heart nor soul: I hated it. The play—a mere trifle—ran chiefly on the efforts of a brace of rivals to gain the hand of a fair coquette. One lover was called the "Ours," a good and gallant but unpolished man, a sort of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... the nineteenth century shall be long out of date, and centuries in general out of their teens, posterity will revert to our delineation of the heavy swell with pleasure undiminished, through the long succession of ages yet to come; the macaroni, the fop, the dandy, will be forgotten, or remembered only in our graphic portraiture of the heavy swell. But the heavy swell is, after all, a harmless nobody. His curse, his besetting sin, his monomania, is vanity tinctured with pride: his weak point ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... regarded as a fop in England, was a daring, steady, and subtle governor of the unruly spirits of Ireland, in one of the most hazardous periods. That the throne of the Brunswicks did not see an Irish revolt at the moment when it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... may-pole idol, And that y' were bang'd both back and side well; And though you overcame the bear, 995 The dogs beat you at Brentford fair; Where sturdy butchers broke your noddle, And handled you like a fop-doodle. ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... serjeant or bailiff; a paunbroker; a prison; a tavern; a scold; a bad husband; a town-fop; a bawd; a fair and happy milk-maid; the quack's ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... had recently introduced into Oxford the Italian game of "calcio" (of which more anon), and was one of the most popular and important men of his college. He was always dressed with great care and elegance, although he was no fop; and he was so handsome and so merry withal that all who knew him regarded him with favour, and his friendship was regarded as a sort of passport to the best circle ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... game," upon which the dog immediately hid his eyes between his paws, in the most honourable manner, and when the gentleman had placed a sixpence, or a piece of cake in a most improbable place, he started up and invariably found it. His powers were equalled by what was called a Fox-terrier, named Fop, who would hide his eyes, and suffer those at play with him to conceal themselves before he looked up. If his playfellow hid himself behind a window curtain, Fop would, for a certain time, carefully pass that curtain, and look ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... the banker Agostino Chigi at his villa of Cetinale. With the exception of our host and of two young painters, also his guests, we see no one, so, for lack of other material, I will describe these young men. The elder is a conceited prankish fop, if no worse, called Giovanni Bazzi, and why his comrade, Raphael Santi, should hold him in affection I can by no means understand, unless the vulgar saying be indeed true that love goes by contraries. In presenting ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... advantage as he did that evening; he was dressed to a miracle of perfection—his spirits were so elastic that they must have carried him out of the box into "Fop's-alley," had not Mrs. Waddledot cleverly surrounded him by the detachment from the corps of eighteen daughters, which had (on that night) been placed under ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... practice of mankind."-"True, madam," resumed our hero, fixing his eyes upon her; "examples of levity are every where to be met with."-"Oh Lord, sir," cried Emilia, tossing her head, "you'll scarce ever find a fop ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... prudery, a certain pedantry which is pleasing to women. The coquette and the pedant are neighbours. Their kinship is visible in the fop. The subtile is derived from the sensual. Gluttony affects delicacy, a grimace of disgust conceals cupidity. And then woman feels her weak point guarded by all that casuistry of gallantry which takes the place of scruples in prudes. It is a line of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... pretended madness of HAMLET causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of OPHELIA fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last that exposes affectation to ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... a born fop, a boulevardier by adoption, cultivated habits that seemed to follow the mechanical laws of those clockwork manikins that ingenious horologists contrive for the amusement of children, big and little. Whether eating, sleeping, driving, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... only that, I do not find any one worthy of my love, either morally or physically. It is useless to say and think all I want. A—— will never be anything but a good-looking member of the fashionable society of Nice—a gay liver, almost a fop. Oh, no; every man has some defect that prevents loving him entirely. One is stupid, another awkward, another ugly, another—in short, I seek physical and ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff

... European lady's work-bag, and this is made into various compartments, one for tobacco, one for snuff, one for trona or ghour nuts, another for striking-light matters, another for needles and thread, another containing a little looking-glass, &c., &c.; and I have seen a Touarghee fop adjust his toilette with as much coquetry as the most brilliant flirt,—indeed, the vanity of some of these Targhee dandies surpasses all our notions of vanity in European dress. Over the frock, on one of the shoulders, is carried the barracan ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... fop, that doll, that silly girl in men's clothes? Nonsense!—I took him as I would ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... further request, that a father, who seems delighted at seeing his son metamorphosed into a fop, or a coxcomb, because he hath travelled from London to Paris; may be sent along with the young gentleman to the hospital, as an old fool, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... foreign adventurer, prince perhaps, but who could tell? Lies are easily told when the proofs of the lie have to be sought beyond the frontiers. And it was her daughter who was going to fall in love with an insipid fop who only coveted her millions. That she should see such a man enter her family, steal Micheline's love from her, and rummage her strongbox! In a moment she vowed mortal hatred against Panine, and resolved to do all she ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... ale-houses, and that he had probably never before been in a study full of books, arms, and bric-a-brac. And he knew that I was aware of it. Now, if he had been more of a fool, like a red Indian or an old-fashioned fop, he would have affected a stoical indifference, for fear of showing his ignorance. As it was, he sat down in an arm-chair, glanced about him, and said just ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... of music, delighted in dancing-schools, would needs be taught fencing and riding, and from the studies preparative to making a grave rabbi, jumped all of a sudden to the qualities necessary to finish a Jewish fop. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... spite of his claims of long descent and his extraordinary natural cleverness, he has never been widely popular in this country as the Collie and the Fox-Terrier are popular. There is a general belief that he is a fop, whose time is largely occupied in personal embellishment, and that he requires a great deal of individual attention in the matter of his toilet. It may be true that to keep him in exhibition order and perfect cleanliness his owner has need to devote more consideration to him than is necessary ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... himself wondering how the young fop would look sitting in a pool of muddy water. How insufferable the young fellow's manners were! He sat quite close to Maimie, now and then whispering to her, evidently quite ignorant of how to behave in church. And Maimie, who ought to know better, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... feeling as if now first made sensible of the extreme folly, the lunacy of all my actions! The dialogue I had just heard vibrated in my brain, burning and wasting it with the frenzy of agonizing recollection. 'I was a forward prating fop, of little fortune, and less shame! Bold and flighty, with no little opinion of myself; again and again I was ridiculous, and impertinent! My crotchets, whims, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... also from that same unsocial pride which lays him so broadly open to the arts of sycophancy, and thus draws him, as if spellbound, under the tainted breath of that strange compound of braggart, liar, and fop. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... Wedgewood was placed in the stocks for being in the company of drunkards. Thomas Petit, for "suspicion of slander, idleness and stubbornness," was severely whipped. Captain Lowell, a dashing ladies' man, more of a cavalier and modern society fop than a sober Puritan, was admonished to "take heed of his light carriage." The records show that Josias Plaistowe, for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, was ordered to return to them eight baskets, to be fined ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... and then you'l have reason to rejoice; for it is commonly the usual custom of the semstresses to let you go and run after them, and fop you off with lies and stories, till the time be so nigh at hand, that it will admit no ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... course, he accompanied home after the services were over. As I have said, he was a handsome fellow, and bestowed particular care on his dress and his appearance generally. He was good-natured and obliging, and withal sensible, so that the young men who envied him and might be inclined to call him a fop or a dandy, could not prefix 'brainless' to these epithets and thus ridicule on him. The fact is, he was shrewder than any of them, and he knew it. They soon discovered it, and so did the girls, to the utter ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... country to the ear of another merchant, could talk to him through the wire. The other merchant could reverse and talk back! Sometimes a young woman would tiptoe up to the box where the wire ended and say the most absurd things to her favorite fop down-town; this was often overheard. People had not yet learned the method of understanding each other's thoughts without the ridiculous contrivance of speech, ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... Julia the words were as sweet as the first rain after a tedious drouth. She had heard complaint, censure, innuendo, and downright abuse of poor Gus. These were the first generous words. They confirmed her judgment, they comforted her heart, they made her feel grateful, even affectionate toward the fop, in spite of his watch-seals, his curled mustache, his straps, his cold eyes, and his artificial smile. Poor fool you will call her, and poor fool she was. For she could have thrown herself at the feet of Humphreys, and thanked him for his words. Thank him she did in a stammering ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... the exquisite young fop at her side was utterly dumbfounded. He could not remember ever before in his life being so completely taken by surprise and dismay that he had not a word to answer. But this time he said not a single word. He did not even attempt an answer, but paced the length of the deck beside ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... defence; For want of decency is want of sense. What moderate fop would rake the park or stews, Who among troops of faultless nymphs may choose? Variety of such is to be found: Take then a subject proper to expound; But moral, great, and worth a poet's voice; For men of sense despise a ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... princess, opening upon him all the tenderness of her large and beaming eyes, "how weary am I of sitting on my cushion, and seeing fop after fop, fool after fool, dawdle down upon their faces before me; and, moreover, I am suffocated with perfumes. Strike your mandolin again louder, beloved of my soul—still louder, that I may be further relieved ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... Hold her, Some piteous fop, that liketh not to see Fine linen smeared with goose! Oh, gracious Laura, I never have seen a child sucking an orange But I wished an orange, too. This wedding irks me Because 'tis not mine own. Shall we be ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... that the slaves brought. To me some of their manners were closely touching on disrespect. At the halfway of the meal, a gorgeous popinjay—he was a governor of an out-province driven into the capital by a rebellion in his own lands—this gorgeous fop, I say, walked up between the groups of feasters with flushed face and unsteady gait, and did obeisance before the divan. "Most astounding Empress," cried he, "fairest among the Goddesses, Queen regnant ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... Well, you see, I was in trade then. Different now. I'm getting to be quite a fop. Do you notice that I say 'By Jove' occasionally?" He gave his raucous laugh of derision. "Dined at Sherry's the other night, old chap," he went on with raw mimicry. "They thought I was a Christian and let me in. I used to look like the devil, ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... Tale, Prolong the Preaching, and protract the Wail! "Some forage Falsehoods from the North and South, But Pope, poor D-l, lied from Hand to Mouth; {5} Affected, hypocritical, and vain, A Book in Breeches, and a Fop in Grain; A Fox that found not the high Clusters sour, The Fanfaron of Vice beyond his power, Pope yet possessed"—(the Praise will make you start) - "Mean, morbid, vain, he yet possessed a Heart! And ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... of the singer. But what amazed Policles most of all was the effect of this performance upon the audience. Every Greek was a trained critic, and as unsparing in his hisses as he was lavish in his applause. Many a singer far better than this absurd fop had been driven amid execration and abuse from the platform. But now, as the man stopped and wiped the abundant sweat from his fat face, the whole assembly burst into a delirium of appreciation. The shepherd held his hands to his bursting head, and felt that his reason must be leaving ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "'Tis some city fop," she said, stamping her foot, "who is tired of the idle town dames. I wonder if he has ever seen the sun rise or done a day's work in his life? If only I had the wretch! But I ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... had been not a little overawed at seeing Claggett Chew, could not restrain himself at the sight of this fop. The touch of fear he had felt, looking into the pale expressionless eyes of Mr. Wicker's enemy, found relief and release in an uncontrollable burst of laughter when from his pocket Osterbridge Hawsey ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... outrageous fop, Vilmorin, who had been bending over Canaples, started up and coming towards me with a face that was whiter than that of the prostrate man, he proved himself so utterly bereft of wit by terror that for once he had ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... making the most elaborate of toilets, with the assistance of a bevy of vocalists, does not exert the attraction to be found in the presence of Oldfield. The episode is all very funny, of course, and there is an appreciative titter when the fop defines ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... The gallant fop touched the narrow brim of his hat to Kate, who was peeping from one window, and waved a kiss to Susan, who was surreptitiously glancing from another, whereupon both being detected, drew back hastily. Overwhelmed by the appearance of a guest of ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... justly, "If you were to write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you would make the little fishes talk like whales." No man surely ever had so little talent for personation as Johnson. Whether he wrote in the character of a disappointed legacy-hunter or an empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or a flippant coquette, he wrote in the same pompous and unbending style. His speech, like Sir Piercy Shafton's Euphuistic eloquence, bewrayed him under every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclea talk as finely as Imlac the poet or ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... remained at home to-day. I performed some little errands. Monsr. de La Grange[109] called upon us, dressed up like a great fop, as he was. My comrade did not fail to speak to him seriously on the subject. He requested us to go with him immediately to his house, as I at length did. His house was not far from our lodgings on the front of the ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... Sir, that pretends to a Place at Court; but the Queen's mightily oblig'd to some People.—Has a Gentleman an impudent rakish Footman, not meaning my self, Sir, that wears his Linen, fingers his Money, and lies with his Mistress;—You Dog, you shall serve the Queen.—Has a Tradesman a Fop Prentice, that airs out his Horses, and heats his Wife, or an old Puritan a graceless Son, that runs to the Play-House instead of the Meeting, they are threathen'd with the Queen's Service; so that Her Majesty's good Subjects, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... the guiltier of the two. You were as good as promised to him—you know you were—and you should have been proud to be. He would have given his life for you any day, and you broke your faith for a smooth—faced, brazen fop, who played with you to your peril, and despised you in his heart all the while for a false jade. You may thank Trapp all your life for cutting that short when he did, and thank God you can yet be an honest wife ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... warning people to get out of the way. Rotonde, the first one, is an Italian, a teacher of English and professional rioter, who, convicted of murder and robbery, is to end his days in Piedmont on the gallows. The second, Lazowski, is a Pole, a former dandy, a conceited fop, who, with Slave facility, becomes the barest of naked sans-culottes; former enjoying a sinecure, then suddenly turned out in the street, and shouting in the clubs against his protectors who he sees put down; he is elected captain of the gunners ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... fop's advice to a hustling street passenger to apologize for his rudeness before it was too late. Whereat Morsfield, certain that his parasitic thrasyleon apeing coxcomb would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... wilderness fop and a dandy, and evidently was as careful of his clothes as a West Point cadet. In dress he affected the old-fashioned picturesque garb of the mountains. His appearance filled me with wonder and admiration; he stood six feet two or three inches in his moccasins, straight ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... approached a trifle too near, when all at once the bear whipped an arm about him, took him to his embrace, and "went through" his pockets in a hurry. The terrified face of the struggling and screaming fop, and the good-natured, businesslike expression of the fumbling and munching beast, offered the funniest sort ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various

... even as she had done to me. The newcomer was that sneering Court fop, the Count von Reuss, Duke Casimir's nephew—still in hiding from the wrath of his uncle. For at that time hardly any court in Germany was without one or two of these hangers-on, and a bad, reckless, ill-contriving breed they were at ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... scene was "bright with all the colours of the rainbow"? There is no need to condemn these phrases, for language has a vast deal of inferior work to do. The expression of thought, temperament, attitude, is not the whole of its business. It is only a literary fop or doctrinaire who will attempt to remint all the small defaced coinage that passes through his hands, only a lisping young fantastico who will refuse all conventional garments and all conventional speech. At a modern wedding ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... Oldbuck, "what sort of a qualification is that?On my word, it reminds me of our minister, who, choosing, like a formal old fop as he is, to drink to my sister's inclinations, thought it necessary to add the saving clause, Provided, madam, they be virtuous. Come, let us have no more of this nonsenseI dare say Sir Arthur will bid us welcome on some future day. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... top And chief among the princes; No MOBILE gay fop, With Birmingham pretences; A heart and soul so wondrous great, And such a conquering eye, That every loyal lad fears not In ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... strutting all point-device in scarlet slippers and satin and damask, spreading his gaudy feathers at high noon in sober Boston streets!—was this our boasted Republican simplicity? And what "fop-tackle" did the dignified Judge of the Supreme Court wear in Boston at that date? He walked home from the bench in the winter time clad in a magnificent white corduroy surtout lined with fur, with his judicial hands thrust in ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... always coincident with periods of luxury and great wealth, with consequent enervation and effemination; examples of this may be found in the histories of Rome, Greece, and France. During the reign of Louis XV., examples of effemination crowded into the court and vied with the royal fop in the splendor of their raiment and effeminacy of their bearing. Psychic hermaphroditism does not occur naturally in uncivilized or half-civilized races. The reason for this is patent. Atavism finds among them no ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... both of you, to Annabellas and Epistles to Ferney,(1009) that give Voltaire an account of his own tragedies, to Macarony fables that are more unintelligible than Pilpay's are in the original, to Mr. Thornton's hurdy-gurdy poetry'(1010) and to Mr. ***** who has imitated himself worse than any fop in a magazine would have done. In truth, if you should abandon us, I could not wonder—When Garrick's prologues and epilogues, his own Cymons and farces, and the comedies of the fools that pay court to him, are the delight of the age, it does not deserve ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... in private life, a mild edition of his own Lord Foppington; he had none of the snob-fop as represented on our conventional stage; nobody ever had, and lived. He was in tolerably good taste; but he went ever gold-laced, highly powdered, scented, and diamonded, dispensing graceful bows, praises of whoever had the good luck to be dead, and satire ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... creed. Though the author has no view of this class of sentimental or termagant politicians except on their ludicrous side, he exposes that side with a brilliant remorselessness which is refreshing in this age of universal cant. Though something of a coxcomb himself, he has no mercy on the fop turned politician and theologian. The mistake of his satire on Young Ireland consists in overlooking the reality of the wrongs under which that country groans, and the depth and intensity of the passions roused. In regard to style the author is a mannerist. The present ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... the ghosts of beauty glide, And haunt the places where their honour died. See how the world its veterans rewards! A youth of frolics, an old age of cards; Fair to no purpose, artful to no end; Young without lovers, old without a friend; A fop their passion, but their prize a sot; Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot! Ah! friend! to dazzle let the vain design; To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine! That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring, Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... Majesty dresses too much like a good family man. Pray, Sire, be an example to your faithful subjects of good taste in dress."—"Would you like me, in order to please you," replied the Emperor, "to dress like a scented fop, like a dandy, in fine, like the King of Naples and the Two Sicilies. As for me, I must hold on to my old habitudes."—"Yes, Sire, and to your 'habits tues'," added the king on one occasion. "Detestable!" cried the Emperor; "that is worthy of Brunet;" and they laughed heartily over ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... was a flirt—yes, a male coquette—and he had broken the hearts of half the girls in the band. Besides being a flirt, he was a fop. He would plait his hair and put vermilion on his cheeks; and, after seeing that his leggins were properly arranged, he would put the war eagle feathers in his head, and folding his blanket round him, would walk ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... Lavinia's gallant Archibald Dorrimore, the young Templar, served only to amuse the young lady. She was not blind to the fact that he was a fop and not blessed with too much brain. She had seen many of his sort before and did not trust them. But Dorrimore struck her as more sincere than the rest. Besides, ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... as you profess, you are striving to render that niece miserable for life by uniting her with one whom you admit to be a fool, a coward, and a vain fop." ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... Isidore seemed indeed scarcely the man for a task like that which lay before them. Rather under the middle height and slightly built, he had apparently been little accustomed to severe or protracted exertion, whilst everything about him bespoke the petit maitre, if not the fop. In the meanwhile the young marquis had not given a second thought to the few words that had passed at the outset of the journey. Being habitually reserved towards his inferiors, he was content ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... of life; and it is so far from being a disparagement to any man's understanding, that it is rather a proof of it, to be as well dressed as those whom he lives with: the difference in this case between a man of sense and a fop is, that the fop values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time that he knows he must not neglect it. There are a thousand foolish customs of this kind, which not being criminal, must ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... who was then only a courtier in Versailles, came to Madame Geoffrin's parties. He was a man who combined in a most surprising manner true philosophy and a deep knowledge of political economy, with the outward appearance of a fop and a trifler. Among the other distinguished men who lived in Paris, Marmontel names with high praise the Abbe Galliani, Caraccioli, who was afterward Neapolitan ambassador, and the Swedish ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various

... said Binder, "and leave the field to the prima donna." As he left the room, he muttered: "If Kaunitz were not a great statesman, he would be a ridiculous old fop!" ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... clearly and distinctly; 'take care, my little friend, lest you become a fop; and, in that case, some day, years hence, when your heart is devoted to some young lady, she may be inclined to say to you'—here he raised his voice—'No, thank you; when I marry, I marry a man, not a petit-maitre; I marry a ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Many a coy wench was there who knew not how to open her lips to speak, much less to eat, or from very ceremony, how to look under foot; and many a ragged shrew who would contend that she was equal to the best lady in the street, and many an ambling fop who might winnow beans by ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... a decided fop—did not approve of a Doric pronunciation. No doubt broad vowels were out of fashion. I believe I shall give his part to Edith. It's a small one, but it has scope for a good ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... without brain or sense, 'Tis now the fashion; Each giddy fop endeavours to commence A reformation. Pardon them for their native ignorance, And brainsick passion; For, after all, true men of sense will say,— Their works ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... fanned A fire that swiftly grew almost to hate. For when the seamen must take precedence Of loiterers on the deck—through half a word, Small, with intense device, like some fierce lens, He magnified their rude and blustering mode; Or urged some scented fop, whose idle brain Busied itself with momentary whims, To bid the master alter here a sail, Or there a rope; and, if the man refused, Doughty, at night, across the wine-cups, raved Against the rising insolence of the mob; And hinted Drake himself was half to blame, In words ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... part of the world with events disastrous to England, and even more shameful than disastrous. But the most humiliating of these events was the loss of Minorca. The Duke of Richelieu, an old fop who had passed his life from sixteen to sixty in seducing women for whom he cared not one straw, landed on that island, and succeeded in reducing it. Admiral Byng was sent from Gibraltar to throw succours into Port-Mahon; but he did not ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... moment we begin to pity the victim of a joke—for humor has much to do with victims—our laughter dies away. Therefore the subject of the joke must not be one for whose distress we feel strong sympathy. The thing that happens to a fop is quite different in effect from that which affects a sweet old lady. True, we often laugh at those—or at those ideas—with whom or with which we are in sympathy, but in such an instance the ludicrous for the moment overwhelms our sympathy—and ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... great are thy lies! However great thy crimes, thou cheatest the gallows. Oh, Edward, oh, Edward, thou model Prince! Thou hadst nothing kindly in thee, thou vain fop!] ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... of you, learn how to frown. Well, first I premise, it's my honest conviction, That my breast is a chaos of all contradiction; Religious—deistic—now loyal and warm; Then a dagger-drawn democrat hot for reform: This moment a fop, that, sententious as Titus; Democritus now, and anon Heraclitus; Now laughing and pleased, like a child with a rattle; Then vex'd to the soul with impertinent tattle; Now moody and sad, now unthinking and gay, To all points of the compass I veer in ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... man who would confound sharp practises of the crafty; or "call the bluff" of financial gamester; or walk unconcerned where physical danger calls for nerve of steel and lion's heart; or fling at affected fop rapier sentences that cut deep through the very quick ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... blue, ourselves included; not more surely does our slice of bread and butter, when it escapes from our hand, revolve it ever so often, alight face downward on the carpet. But this was a bit of a fop, Adonis, dragoon,—so Venus remained in tete-a-tete with him. You have seen a dog meet an unknown female of his species; how handsome, how empresse, how expressive he becomes; such was Dolignan after Swindon, and to do the dog justice, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... may be now) A Prince, the prince of princes at the time, With fascination in his very bow, And full of promise, as the spring of prime. Though royalty was written on his brow, He had then the grace, too, rare in every clime, Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, A finish'd gentleman ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... dress and appearance will grow, because as the adolescent boy or girl becomes conscious of his own personality he thinks more and more of the appearance of his person, and especially of how it appears to others. There is even the danger that the boy will become a fop or a dandy, and that the girl will take to overdressing. Argument is of little avail in such cases. The association with persons of good taste who will arouse the admiration or affection of the growing child will do more than hours of ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... his life; and that way it would be sooner communicated to the world. And you know Tacitus published the life of Julius Agricola, before either of his annals or his history. I am contented you should laugh at me for a fop in talking of Livy or Tacitus; when all I can hope for is to side Hollingshead, and Stow, or (because he is a poor Knight too, and worse than either of them) Sir Richard Baker' (December 14, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... merely modish will soon go out of fashion, and if you practise it in age, you will appear a fop whom nobody esteems. ...
— Advice to Young Musicians. Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln • Robert Schumann

... who not thirty years later was to die master of Rome, was chiefly known as a fop and a spendthrift. "In all his schemes and all his policy," said Cicero, "I discern the temper of a tyrant; but then when I see how carefully his hair is arranged, how delicately with a single finger ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... the best proof of my conviction is, that I am myself ruined. Yes," and he began to roll his eyes about, as the terrors of his situation came rushing upon him, on the wake of the now departing effects of the Rainbow wine—"Yes, the swell, the fop, the leader of the college ton, whose coat came from the artistic study of Willis, whose necktie could raise a furore, whose glove, without a wrinkle, would condescend only to be touched by friendship on the tip of the finger, is now at the mercy of any one of twenty ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... of the upper class. Monsieur Decresson had a narrow black beard, a military moustache, a high forehead, pale complexion, and thoughtful eyes. Monsieur Grisson was shorter, with lighter-colored hair, something of a fop in his attire, and certainly ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... no one a civil word that day. Wool was an atrocious villain, an incendiary scoundrel, a cut-throat, and a black demon. Cap was a beggar, a vagabond and a vixen. Herbert Greyson was another beggar, besides being a knave, a fop and an impudent puppy. The innkeeper was a swindler, the waiters thieves, the whole world was going to ruin, where it well deserved to go, and all mankind to the demon—as he hoped and trusted ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... as it is, is one which makes me respect him as one of a class. Of course, he is sometimes one of those "gents" whom Punch so ruthlessly holds up to just ridicule. He is sometimes a vulgar fop, sometimes fond of low profligacy—of betting-houses and casinos. Well—I know no class in any age or country among which a fool may not be found here and there. But that the "gent" is the average type of this class, I should utterly deny from such experience as I have had. ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... must be to the poatas to b' wearied so by stoopid people," observed a tall, stout, superlative fop with sleepy eyes and long whiskers to another ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... Away goes the Fop, as well pleas'd to think he shou'd put a Trick on his Mistress as he shou'd enioy her, which for the Lucre of the Fifty Guinea's he no longer question'd. And coming to the Goldsmith's Shop, he pulls his Ring off of his ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous

... see it chopped off: and when a patroness of his joked the child on his defeat, and on Bottini's ruling the roast, the clever rogue retorted that papa knew better than to baulk the Pope of his grudge, and could have argued Bottini's nose off if he had chosen. Doesn't the fop see that he (de Archangelis) can drive right and left horses with one hand? The Gomez case shall make it ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... did much excel And lov'd to douse a boasting fop, Nor cared I how or where we fell Provided ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... her complaisant husband and her royal keeper, lavished her fondness on a crowd of paramours of all ranks, from dukes to rope-dancers. In the time of the Commonwealth she commenced her career of gallantry, and terminated it under Anne, by marrying, when a great-grandmother, that worthless fop, Beau Fielding. It is not strange that she should have regarded Wycherley with favor. His figure was commanding, his countenance strikingly handsome, his look and deportment full of grace and dignity. He had, as Pope said long after, "the true nobleman look," the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... too constantly in contact with the world, too much given to the spirit of crowded company and fashion. Conscientious truthfullness, earnest discrimination, and a behavior honestly adapted to the facts of feeling and duty, are too expensive, would quickly drain to death the fop, the self-seeker, and the coquette. Accordingly, indifference is the shield of polite society, and affectation is the valve of artificial characters; but sincerity of soul is the first charm of manners, and extent ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... of my experience at least, Gazelle, has been the astonishing loyalty to his chaplains and his church of that awful phenomenon, the young High Church fop, the ecclesiastical youth. He has known what his chaplains are for, and what they can give him; he hasn't needed to be looked up and persuaded to do his religious duties, but has rather looked up his chaplains and persuaded them ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... said, smiling, "if the Marquis von Botter is not deceived by this dandy that I see before me, it is not my fault. The good Austrian ambassador must be very cunning indeed if he discovers a warrior in this perfumed fop. I think he will be able to tell my cousin, Maria Theresa, nothing more than that the King of Prussia knows how to dress himself, and is ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... conversation. The lady received her visitors reposing on that throne of beauty, a bed placed in an alcove; the toilet was magnificently arranged. The space between the bed and the wall was called the Ruelle[A], the diminutive of la Rue; and in this narrow street, or "Fop's alley," walked the favoured. But the chevalier who was graced by the honorary title of l'Alcoviste, was at once master of the household and master of the ceremonies. His character is pointedly defined by St. Evremond, as "a lover ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... ha, ha, ha, ha; Oh, I shall die with Laughing.—The most Romantick Adventure: Ha, ha! what does the odious young Fop mean? A Hundred Pieces to talk an Hour ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre

... (Earnestly) I like not tattling tongues yet I must voice, A matter which hath cut me to the quick: On yester morn, I in sweet converse joined, With one who wears angelic form divine, When this presuming fop with jeering eye, Made bold to amble, with convenient ear. Till we, forsooth, were forced to silence woo. But let us turn awhile to pleasant thoughts. What has been fashioned for the glorious day When we shall thrust our journey in the past And meet rejoicing thousands at the pier? (Seldonskip ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... the twice ten thousand bards That ever penned a canto, Whom Pudding or whom Praise rewards For lining a portmanteau; Of all the poets ever known, From Grub-street to Fop's Alley,[103] The Muse may boast—the World must own There's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... is a coarse man. He is not delicate enough for your niceness; because I suppose he dresses not like a fop and a coxcomb, and because he lays not himself out in complimental nonsense, the poison of female minds. He is a man of sense, that I can tell you. No man talks more to the purpose to us: but you fly him so, that he has no opportunity given him, to express it to you: and a man who ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... scented with violets! Here's a little hole fretted by a ring on the third finger. Bless me! here are the initials, 'S.P.,' stamped on the inside, with a coat of arms below. What a fop to get up his gloves in this style! They are exquisite, though. Such a delicate color, so little soiled, and so prettily ornamented! Handsome hands wore these. I'd like ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... Some fiery fop, with new commission vain, Who sleeps on brambles till he kills his man; Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast, Provokes a broil, and stabs you for a ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... mocked by this conceited lover, Your former victories will naught avail; Your honour's lost if this pert fop prevail. ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... not?" demanded Thorpe, with a sudden growl in his voice. As he covered the handsome Viscount with his heavy, intent gaze, impulses of wrath stirred within him. Why should this fop of a lordling put on this air of contemptuous incredulity? "What is there so amazing about that? Why shouldn't ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... their privilege. They are clear in their office, nor could they be thus formidable, without their own merits. But do not measure the importance of this class by their pretension, or imagine that a fop can be the dispenser of honor and shame. They pass also at their just rate; for how can they otherwise, in circles which exist as a sort of herald's office[413] for the sifting ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Disappointment is no less certain. What we call an agreeable Man, is he who is endowed with [the [1]] natural Bent to do acceptable things from a Delight he takes in them meerly as such; and the Affectation of that Character is what constitutes a Fop. Under these Leaders one may draw up all those who make any Manner of Figure, except in dumb Show. A rational and select Conversation is composed of Persons, who have the Talent of Pleasing with Delicacy of Sentiments flowing from habitual Chastity ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... in great families, wore a cap with bells, on the top of which was a piece of red cloth, in the shape of a cock's comb. At present, coxcomb signifies a fop, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... Should I find Foscario visit thee, him whom thy parents favour, I should undo you all, by heaven I should—but thou hast sworn, what need Philander more? Yes, Sylvia, thou hast sworn and called heaven's vengeance down whenever thou gavest a look, or a dear smile in love to that pretending fop: yet from his mighty fortune there is danger in him—What makes that thought torment me now?—Be gone, for Sylvia loves me, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... in the filthy poultry yards; the grinding out of poor jokes; the coarse, cheap underclothes (she used to cry when she put them on, she hated them so). Years and years of it all; and for that cold, selfish fop! ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis

... to mention Fisher, the sub-editor of The New Yorker, and, in his own estimation, the most important person upon that journal. He was what might be called a literary fop, and was much given to the production of highly-wrought, Byronic poems and sketches. I remember hearing that some one called one day at the office, and asked to see the editor. ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... well-displayed joints, undecided which to select, until Mr. Butcher recommends a leg or a loin; and then he so very politely cuts off the fat, in which his skilful hand is guided by the high or low price of mutton fat in the market. He is the very antipode of a fop, yet no man knows how to show a handsome leg off to better advantage, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various

... must be better," said Hardy; "at any rate the youngsters there are marchers and fighters; besides, one would be in the ranks and know one's place. Here one is by way of being a gentleman—God save the mark! A young officer, be he never such a fop or profligate, must take his turn at guard, and carry his life in his hand all over the world wherever he is sent, or he has to leave the service. Service!—yes, that's the word; that's what makes every young red-coat respectable, though he mayn't think it. He is serving his ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... to the lieutenant who had headed our party, drawling out his words in a fashion absurd in a London fop, but disgusting in the ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... Gobbo in "The Merchant of Venice"—an old gentleman, and almost as great a fop as Mr. Byrn. He was always smiling; his two large rows of teeth were so very good! And he had pompous, grandiloquent manners, and wore white gaiters and a long hanging eye-glass. His appearance I should never have forgotten anyhow, but he is also connected ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... administration of government during almost the entire progress of The Seven Years' War, had carried England to a height of prosperity and influence which she had never before approached, was superseded by a fop; his eminent worth was overlooked; his services were apparently forgotten, and he was allowed to retire from office and leave the young sovereign and his government in the hands of weak, crafty, and selfish men. The people venerated Pitt; they despised the very name of Stuart. They ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... ocean! I have known no peace from childhood up, and it seems none shall I know. Scarce by a very little have I escaped thy dagger's point, Harmachis, when this new trouble, that, like a storm, has gathered beneath the horizon's rim, suddenly bursts over me. Didst mark that tigerish fop? Well should I love to trap him! How soft he spoke! Ay, he purred like a cat, and all the time he stretched his claws. Didst hear the letter, too? it has an ugly sound. I know this Antony. When I was but a child, budding into womanhood, I saw ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... N. fop, fine gentleman; swell; dandy, dandiprat|!; exquisite, coxcomb, beau, macaroni, blade, blood, buck, man about town, fast man; fribble, milliner|!; Jemmy Jessamy|!, carpet knight; masher, dude. fine lady, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... very soon exchanged, and in two years after, we heard of his surrender at discretion to the fair heiress of Brompton park. He has recently been most distinguished as the father of that eminent fop, Lord Petersham, the envy of Bond street and the pride of the pave. This sort of notoriety, though not exactly for the same reason was that which immortalized "Philip Thicknesse, father of Lord Audley." The celebrated Lady Harriet Ackland, although we never could forgive her second marriage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various

... that her entire being had undergone a change, and that she now wished to save him, never once entered his mind; if it had, he would have dismissed it as the outcome of maudlin sentimentality, the conceit of the fop, who believes his ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... acquaintance with Germany as school-boy, as student at the universities, and lately as a most hospitably received guest by all sorts and conditions of men, I do not remember meeting a fop. A German Beau Brummel is as impossible as a French Luther, an American Goethe, or an English Wagner. We have had attempts at foppery in America, but no real fops. A genuine fop, whether in art, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier



Words linked to "Fop" :   Beau Brummell, swell, dandy, cockscomb, sheik, man, coxcomb, adult male, gallant, fashion plate, macaroni, Brummell



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