Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Foul, abusive language.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Profane or scurrilous language or abuse; blackguardism.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A market near the Billings gate in London, celebrated for fish and foul language.
- n. Coarsely abusive, foul, or profane language; vituperation; ribaldry.
WordNet 3.0
- n. foul-mouthed or obscene abuse
Etymologies
- From the London, England fishmarket Billingsgate (Wiktionary)
- After Billingsgate, a former fish market in London, England. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“One must have read much in Luther, one should have read all of Luther, and his "billingsgate" will assume a different meaning.”
Luther Examined and Reexamined A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation
“They talk forever and forever, and that is the kind of billingsgate they use.”
“We could argue that the commodification of violence and abuse is a problem plaguing society as a whole, and is not limited to comics alone — heaven knows all you need to do is to turn on talk radio or go to Capitol Hill yesterday to hear billingsgate that used to be beyond the pale.”
BOOK VIEW CAFE BLOG » Justice League – Cry for Justice: A Very Short Review
“I won't take sides in all this learned billingsgate- I'm just here to relate a rather amusing SCOTUS anecdote.”
Should Congress scrutinize the aging Supreme Court Justices and lean on them to retire?
“Such low language from a Ph.D. is typical of the foul-mouthed, tasteless vulgarity that has corrupted television, radio, newspapers and other media with offensiveness and obscene billingsgate we used to hear from the mouths of naughty boys.”
“She was entirely free of what - based on the type location - we could term Marcottery: unremitting 'feminist' billingsgate.”
“They exhausted the vocabulary of billingsgate in denouncing those guilty of this most henious of all sins, and charged them in plain terms, with being _afraid_ to investigate or to discuss the subject.”
“It appeared that "Jim Crow" had outraged his sense of African character so greatly that he could not restrain his passion; but vented it in the choicest _billingsgate_ with which his vocabulary had been furnished in the forecastle of the "Gil Blas.”
“There were on that day as many as four fights, with enough miscellaneous howling, cursing and billingsgate to fill out the natural make-up of a hundred more.”
“Here was a conflict of testimony in which every witness recollected the facts according to his politics; but pending the proceedings I was fortunate enough to find the notes of the "Globe" reporter, which perfectly vindicated me from Mr. Mallory's charges, and suddenly put his bluster and billingsgate to flight.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘billingsgate’.
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phrontistery - b
List of words from phrontistery.info
bywoner, byssus, byssiferous, byssaceous, byrnie, butyric, butyraceous, buttery, buteonine, bunting, burdet, broma and 582 more...
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Cool sounding words
Stuff that either rolls off the tongue really well or sounds interesting.
suppurate, inveterate, douche, Constantinople, zyzygy, polyglot, serendipitous, vivisection, solypsis, conflagration, instupituous, fecundity and 52 more...
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Words of the day
The list of Wordnik words of the day.
panurgic, chapfallen, billingsgate, latration, witticaster, slitheroo, rux, crotchet, mirliton, arenose, ruelle, jane-of-apes and 76 more...
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wakcy's Words
apocalypse, interlude, drome, absolution, atrocity, ruse, pristine, mason, reparable, deteriorate, pyramid, hipster and 283 more...
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Amalgamations
Words that have been smashed together.
keystone, touchstone, footprint, thunderhead, seesaw, textbook, leftovers, watchword, afterbirth, fieldwork, outcast, statesman and 148 more...
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Worse Than They Sound
fistula, cryptosporidium, debride, donnybrook, decerebrate, pillory, flagellate, disembogue, minatory, micturate, coprolite, nosocomial and 160 more...
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slackagogo's Words
agelast, aggiornamento, zaftig, wowserism, vox barbara, verbigeration, tchotchke, tautology, sycophant, spoonerism, solipsism, sobriquet and 288 more...
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Forgotten English 1
jacal, mastaba, lucarne, quoin, triglyph, gargarice, nimgimmer, phrenologize, fleam, eaglestone, toad eater, king's evil and 156 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1401 more...
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Words that were new to me
but now they're not because I looked them up. In cases of polysemy or homography, *of course* it was the oddest meaning that stumped me. ;)
Procrustean bed, idem sonans, hob, backcap, quango, cheap-jack, pantechnicon, churrigueresco, chopfallen, maritorious, supererogation, catimini and 212 more...
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Awesome Words, Part 1: Less Common
These are words that I have learnt over the years and want to remember
epithalamium, hustings, verger, atheling, moue, pendulous, pendragon, funicular, pericope, fettle, eleemosynary, moot and 160 more...
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Compounds That Look Freakish
You know who you are, freakish compounds. Though very useful, some of these words just don't seem right together--or, their meanings are so far from what the two (or more) component words suggest t...
nightjar, bullfinch, grassquit, bananaquit, ovenbird, waxwing, stonechat, wheatear, bushtit, wrentit, starthroat, godwit and 158 more...
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The Innocents Abroad
Words rounded up while reading The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.
rakish, excursionist, bowelless, pilgrimizing, melodeon, woebegone, abaft, sextant, veriest, behindhand, stanchion, avast and 188 more...
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Dain's Words
rabble, terminus, archaic, atavism, demiurge, waylay, syzygy, jocoserious, quark, entropy, cinnabar, shamble and 912 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, B
bloviate, bejesus, brouhaha, behoove, bodacious, bamboozle, banshee, bub, bolus, blob, bubbly, bleb and 414 more...
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Word Gems
foist, coercion, abecedism, abiectic, abigeus, abiogenesis, ablaut, thunderstruck, dumbfounded, flabbergasted, filagree, blotto and 196 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for billingsgate.
bilby "Its style is an almost pure Army billingsgate that will offend many readers, although in no sense is it exaggerated: Mr. Mailer's soldiers are real persons, speaking the vernacular of human bitterness and agony."
- David Dempsey, 'The Dusty Answer of Modern War', New York Times, 9 May 1948. Nov 20, 2009
grant_barrett This word was chosen as Wordnik word of the day. Nov 11, 2009
whichbe No relation to Bill Gates, of course. Jul 23, 2008
johnmperry Billingsgate was one of the old gates into the city. Originally devoted to Belin Jul 23, 2008
johnmperry Billingsgate was the central London fishmarket for may years. It relocated a few years ago. I knew it reasonably well. My Grandfather was a wholesale fishmonger there. Some of his children and their children became fish porters. I worked there myself for a few weeks during summer break in my first University year (I was the very first of any of my paternal or maternal family ever to go to University. I went on to study medicine). The porters were UK famous for their foul language - I can tell you it was pretty awful. So bad was it that the expression 'to Billingsgate it' meant to swear with optimum strength. I bet some of this rubbed off onto their wives, although I never heard my grandmother swear.
I guess Billingsgate was one of the old London gates, like Ludgate. The market was nearby.
Jul 23, 2008
johnmperry A large fish market in London, presumably where foul-mouths were in abundance Jul 23, 2008