Jemmy-Jessamy

English

Alternative forms

• Jemmy Jessamy

Noun

Jemmy-Jessamy (plural Jemmy-Jessamies)

1. (obsolete, British slang) A dandy; a fop.

   Synonyms: buck, popinjay; see also Thesaurus:dandy

Adjective

Jemmy-Jessamy (comparative more Jemmy-Jessamy, superlative most Jemmy-Jessamy)

1. (obsolete, British slang) Foppish; effeminate; dandyish.

   Synonyms: dandy, buckish; see also Thesaurus:foppish

   • 1786, Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, Edward (transl.) Drewe, Pogonologia‎^[1], Exeter: R. Thorn, page 55:

     These women were more men than our Jemmy-Jessamy countrymen.

   • 1844, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 13, in The Luck of Barry Lyndon:

     I promise you this was very different language to that she had been in the habit of hearing from her Jemmy-Jessamy adorers.

References

• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1896) “Jemmy-Jessamy”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume IV, [London: […] Harrison and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 45.
• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary