Post by t-bob on May 10, 2019 10:07:34 GMT -5
noun
1. a person given to vain, pretentious displays and empty chatter.
Quotes
... Matt Damon brings preening fun to a popinjay in spurs and suede fringe; his throwaway lines and sidelong glances finally realize the comic promise the character always possessed. -- Ann Hornaday, "Cohen brothers' 'True Grit' is polished and entertaining," Washington Post, December 22, 2010 The Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett) is a nasty popinjay, and George's prime minister, Pitt the Younger ... a manipulative cold fish. -- David Denby, "It's a Mad Mad Mad George," New York, January 2, 1995
Origin
The many spellings of popinjay, e.g., papejay, popingay, papinjai in Middle English, in medieval Romance languages, and in medieval Germanic languages, demonstrate the foreign, exotic origin of the term, let alone the bird. The English change of the final syllable from -gay to -jay may be by folk etymology, through association with the jay, the name of several kinds of raucous, lively birds of the crow family. Medieval Latin has papagallus, whose first half, papa-, may be imitative of the bird’s cry; the second half, gallus, is the ordinary Latin noun for “rooster, cock.” Papagallus comes from medieval Greek papagállos, itself a derivative of papagás, from Arabic babghā’, babbaghā’, which is imitative of the bird’s cry. Popinjay entered English in the 13th century in the now obsolete sense of a picture or representation of a parrot (as on a tapestry).
