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• billingsgate •

Pronunciation: bi-lingz-gayt • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. Abusive language, scathing profanity applied with a vengeance. 2. An impudent woman who uses scathing profanity with a vengeance.

Notes: The Billingsgate Fish Market in London is the only fish market I know of that is the eponym of an English word. Historically, Billingsgate has been known as much for the salty language of its fishwives as for its scaly wares. Today it is located in a modern new building where most of the sales staff speak a more palatable idiom. Still, billingsgate is a word that ties us vividly to our history. It is no longer capitalized when used in the sense above.

In Play: You, my dear reader, of course, would never indulge in billingsgate, but the word does provide an ear-catching, homespun alternative to such words as cursing and profanity: "If I ever hear that kind of billingsgate emerge from your mouth again, you will be grounded for life!" (Apparently a family that rules out the death penalty.) If billingsgate is anything, it is an attention-grabber: "I'd love to watch football with you guys Saturday, but three hours of billingsgate from Constance Waring is more than I can take."

Word History: Billingsgate originally referred to one of the two water-gates from the Thames into London. It is located just below London Bridge. Elizabeth I declared it "an open place for the landing and bringing in of any fish, corn, salt stores, victuals and fruit . . . ." In Vanity Fair, Thackeray wrote "Mr. Osborne . . . cursed Billingsgate with an emphasis worthy of the place." By 1799 even Thomas Jefferson was writing: "We disapprove the constant billingsgate poured on them officially." Your turn.

Well, for my part, I do appreciate, and most heartily, Constance Waring. A truly wonderful name, and one that fits well with some people I know. She most definitely warrants a .

For a time years back, I live across from a vacant space
where every Saturday a 'horde' of young men, middle
teens to middle twenties, played football all afternoon.
The most foul of billingsgate spewed from them the
entire afternoon. I suppose the space, situation and time
gave permission for it: they needed to vent.

By the by, I wonder how Bill Gates feels about billingsgate.

.....and all the other "-gates": Monicagate, etc. (I had a
couple others in mind, but 'senior moment').

In this sense, you managed to forget the mother of them all, Watergate.

Oh, yeah! I like to say it's not alls-heimers, but certainly
some-timers, part-timers, or half-timers !

It's like all the political appointees nowadays are 'czars',
ebola-czar, e.g., makes me wonder what the surgeon-general
is for. They get hooked on a term or phrase and very soon
it's all over.

The date given for Elizabeth I should be 1599, not 1699...

The date given for Elizabeth I should be 1599, not 1699...

Good catch and welcome to the Agora.

It looks like it is the person who is wrong though, not the date. The King in 1699 was Billy the Three. According to my encyclopedia, 1699 is the date.

Thought a billingsgate was one of those little toll booths on toll roads,

Thought a billingsgate was one of those little toll booths on toll roads,

Nay. You may have to pay a bill, but they are after all merely tolling for you.

Ask not for whom the road tolls, that is to say.

Well put!