'Vile; Mean; of Different and Unsuitable Parts'

Sometimes a word is so peculiar, comical-sounding, unlikely, mellifluous or specific in usage that we doubt its existence, look up the meaning, vow to use it in the future and promptly forget it. Such is linseywoolsey, two perfect trochees that sound like a proper name. I know I’ve encountered it before because I’ve read The Dunciad before, several times, but it still surprised me. Here it is in Book Three:

“Behold yon isle, by palmers, pilgrims trod,

Men bearded, bald, cowl’d, uncowl’d, shod, unshod,

Peel’d, patch’d, and piebald, linsey-woolsey brothers,

Grave mummers! sleeveless some, and shirtless others.

That once was Britain — happy!”

The OED doesn’t cite Pope but offers this primary definition: “a textile material, woven from a mixture of wool and flax; now, a dress material of coarse inferior wool, woven upon a cotton warp.” The etymology is straightforward if we know that linsey is, as the OED equivocates, “perhaps some coarse linen fabric.” A corresponding modern fabric-related word might be chintz. Not all neologisms are ugly. Linseywoolsey first showed up in the fifteenth century. One can imagine a farmer, weaver or merchant playing with – singing – linsey and wool, and out of sheer exuberance coining linseywoolsey. Pleased with himself, he sang it again, his children heard, they added a melody and additional words—Dirty Gerty, / Puffin ‘n’ Pie, etc. – and a new word is born.

By late in the sixteenth century linseywoolsey had mutated a figurative sense: “a strange medley in talk or action; confusion, nonsense.” Greene, Nashe, Shakespeare and Ford all used it, and – then it seems to have petered out. The last citation dates from 1694. No definition in the OED quite corresponds to Dr. Johnson’s in his Dictionary: “Made of linen and wool mixed. Vile; mean; of different and unsuitable parts.”