Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A man who is preoccupied with and often vain about his clothes and manners; a dandy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To mock; fool; cheat.
  • noun A fool; a shallow pretender; an ostentations dunce.
  • noun A man who is ostentatiously nice in manner and appearance; one who invites admiration by conspicuous dress and affectations; a coxcomb; a dandy.
  • noun Synonyms Dandy, Exquisite, etc. See coxcomb.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One whose ambition it is to gain admiration by showy dress; a coxcomb; an inferior dandy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A vain man; a dandy.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a man who is much concerned with his dress and appearance

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, fool; probably akin to Middle English fob, trickster, cheat; see fob.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Akin to German foppen ("to jeer")

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Examples

  • At eight-and-twenty, Caesar, who not thirty years later was to die master of Rome, was chiefly known as a fop and a spendthrift.

    Roman life in the days of Cicero Alfred John Church 1870

  • After unzipping the download, you will have a file name fop-0. 95 (the latest version as of November 4, 2008).

    fullasagoog.com full roast blend 2008

  • After unzipping the download, you will have a file name fop-0. 95 (the latest version as of November 4, 2008).

    fullasagoog.com full roast blend 2008

  • The style takes a while to get adjusted to since the novel starts on a very light note despite its grim underlying events, Portier being a very self-deprecating and wry narrator, while his two companions in the investigation, Chevalier Ilario and sorcerer Dante start as the overdone cliches of "fop" and "brilliant but moody outsider sorcerer".

    Today in Fantasy: February 8, 2010 Jeff C 2010

  • The style takes a while to get adjusted to since the novel starts on a very light note despite its grim underlying events, Portier being a very self-deprecating and wry narrator, while his two companions in the investigation, Chevalier Ilario and sorcerer Dante start as the overdone cliches of "fop" and "brilliant but moody outsider sorcerer".

    Archive 2010-02-01 Jeff C 2010

  • The style takes a while to get adjusted to since the novel starts on a very light note despite its grim underlying events, Portier being a very self-deprecating and wry narrator, while his two companions in the investigation, Chevalier Ilario and sorcerer Dante start as the overdone cliches of "fop" and "brilliant but moody outsider sorcerer".

    "The Spirit Lens" by Carol Berg (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu) Liviu 2010

  • The style takes a while to get adjusted to since the novel starts on a very light note despite its grim underlying events, Portier being a very self-deprecating and wry narrator, while his two companions in the investigation, Chevalier Ilario and sorcerer Dante start as the overdone cliches of "fop" and "brilliant but moody outsider sorcerer".

    Archive 2010-01-01 Liviu 2010

  • Don Diego Viega, whose picture might just be beside the word 'fop' if California had a dictionary, can do nothing about it.

    Archive 2007-03-01 Blue Tyson 2007

  • Don Diego Viega, whose picture might just be beside the word 'fop' if California had a dictionary, can do nothing about it.

    Archive 2007-03-01 Blue Tyson 2007

  • I didn't yet understand the word "fop," but I sure wanted to be one, even if I had to cut off one of my own hands to look this dashing.

    NPR Topics: News 2010

Comments

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  • Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail,

    Have one sure refuge left—and that’s to rail.

    Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thundered through the pit;

    And this is all their equipage of wit.

    - John Dryden, 'All for Love'.

    September 20, 2009

  • See also musk-cod.

    July 26, 2022