Definition of fop in English:
- The fops and dandies had no interest in war and concentrated instead on their seraglios.
- He is a silly and superficial man, a fop or coxcomb.
- The act made him appear too much a fop for Emma's liking.
late Middle English (in the sense 'fool'): perhaps related to fob2.
fob from (late 16th century):
To fob someone off meant ‘to cheat, deceive’ in medieval days. Although the origin is uncertain, it may be related to German foppen ‘deceive, cheat, banter’, or to fop (Late Middle English) originally used to mean a fool. In the mid 17th century a fob was a small pocket in the waistband of a pair of breeches, for carrying a watch or other valuables. The use of the word to mean a chain attached to a watch developed from this. Again the origin is uncertain, but there may be a link with the earlier English verb, or there could be a connection with the idea of ‘deceive’, because the pocket was ‘secret’.
- Example sentences
- All that foppery that Brummell discarded in the eighteenth century wound up on the backs of the footmen and valets of the nineteenth.
- He is a stern man, rigid in his principles, plain, unaffected in his manners, no foppery in his dress, certainly above corruption, despising wealth…
- With the troop's spirits so low such foppery brings with it guilt and I have desisted from such behavior despite the urgings of the Baron to do otherwise.
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