See also: Fogle

English edit

Etymology edit

Unclear. German Vogel (bird) has been suggested, the connection being bird's-eye, a fabric from which such handkerchiefs were made.[1] Hotten (see References) suggests a connection with the Italian slang foglia (pocket, purse) or French argot fouille (pocket).

Noun edit

fogle (plural fogles)

  1. (obsolete) A pocket handkerchief.
    • 1830, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford, 2009, Gutenberg eBook #7735,
      One, gentlemen, I myself expelled from our corps for ungentlemanlike practices; he picked pockets of fogles, (handkerchiefs)--it was a vulgar employment.
    • 1853, Lord William Lennox, “Ernest Atherley, Or Scenes at Home and Abroad”, in The Sporting Review, Volume 30, page 202:
      [] and we've to pick up the stakes and cords at Uncle Ben's, to get the bird's-eye fogles in St. Martin's-lane, [] .
    • c. 1867, Anthony Trollope, The Claverings[1]:
      Doodles, therefore, wore a cut-away coat, a colored shirt with a fogle round his neck, old brown trousers that fitted very tightly round his legs, and was careful to take no gloves with him.

References edit

  1. ^ 1921, Ernest Weekley, An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 1967, Dover, Volume 1, page 583.
  • John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams edit