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Examples
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As they were thus after a strange maner a wooing, in comes by chance a clapper-dudgeon [24] for a pinte of Ale, who as soone as he was spied, they left off their roguish poetry, and fell to mocke of the poor maunder thus.
Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] John S. Farmer
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I tell thee, friend, one must serve a long apprenticeship ere one can learn to be even so much as a clapper-dudgeon, much less a crank or an Abraham-man. (
The Adventures of Robin Hood Howard Pyle 1882
Gammerstang commented on the word clapper-dudgeon
(noun) - (1) A clapperdogeon is in English a beggar borne; Beggar's Bush.
--Rev. Alexander Dyce's Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, 1845
(2) Probably derived from the beggar's custom of clapping a dish.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 16, 2018