Norfolk Howard

English

Etymology

Said to be an allusion to a person named Ephraim Bug, who advertised that in the future he would call himself by the more aristocratic name of Norfolk Howard.

Noun

Norfolk Howard (plural Norfolk Howards)

1. (UK, obsolete, slang) A bedbug.
   • 1888, James Arthur Lees, Walter J. Clutterbuck, B.C. 1887: A Ramble in British Columbia, page 244:

     All the insects he had sorted, / Placed in paper bags the insects, / In one bag the Norfolk Howards, / In one bag the fleas, the Jumpers […]

   • 1874, Henry Sampson, A history of advertising, page 278:

     Speaking of advertising changes of name, a title by which those lodging-house pests, bugs, are now often known, that of Norfolk Howards, is derived from an advertisement in which one Ephraim Bug avowed his intention of being for the future known as Norfolk Howard.

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary